On the repeatability of friction and wear results and on the influence of humidity in oscillating sliding tests of steel-steel pairings

Abstract The friction and wear behaviour of 100Cr6–100Cr6 was investigated in a ball-on-flat arrangement for the situation of unlubricated oscillating sliding motion at room temperature. The relative humidity (RH) inside the test chamber was varied in the range from 3% to 100%. The coefficient of friction is only slightly influenced by the humidity, whereas the wear increases drastically if the humidity is decreased below 15%. In a medium RH range the oscillating sliding tests show a good repeatability of friction and wear data with standard deviations smaller than ± 10%.