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The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to quantify the error on wear volume evaluation using optical interferometry with image analysis (OI+IA), to establish a lower threshold for wear mapping in practical applications.

A three-dimensional surface wear map is quantified by measuring the same area of a surface before and after a wear process using optical interferometry. Then, by subtracting the matching images, the wear map (volume of wear) is obtained. To access the error related to wear mapping, the difference between several consecutive measurements of the same unworn surface was performed and deeply investigated.

The paper shows that the difference between two consecutive measurements of the same unworn surface, which ideally should be zero, is not. Thus, the magnitude of this “wear map” is the error. The main causes of such uncertainties are because of sample motion in a subpixel scale; a combination between surface roughness with the selected resolution; and numerical errors on the relocation process that is used to match the surfaces before subtracting them.

The proposed methodology allows one to define the lower threshold for wear map analysis using OI+IA. To know the limitation of OI+IA for wear mapping prevents misevaluation of the so-called almost-zero-wear.

This paper covers and identifies main uncertainties and numerical errors related to optical interferometry assisted by image analysis for wear mapping. Several other papers deal with uncertainties of OI; however, this paper proposes a simple methodology to evaluate the lower threshold for wear mapping.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/ILT-08-2019-0354

Wear greatly influences the machine lifetime, performance and reliability and its quantification is very important. This paper aims to propose a modified bearing area curve method by combining the theory of the bearing area curve, and the relocation technique to calculate wear accurately and efficiently.

H13 steel was chosen as the material of wear pair, and the wear experiments were carried out at 50 N, 60 r/min for 20 min. The surface was measured before and after wear experiments. The relocation was made by comparing the mean lines (planes) of the unworn and worn surface profiles. The calculated results using the proposed method were compared with that of the surface profile method for a two-dimensional surface to validate its accuracy. The method was then applied for a three-dimensional (3D) wear analysis.

The worn surface shows clearly displacement compared to the unworn surface and implies the importance of including relocation in the bearing area curve method. The results from the proposed method are 98 per cent close to that from the surface profile method, indicating that the method is accurate for wear evaluation.

As no feature point or relocation mark is needed to calculate the relocation value using the proposed method, the method can be applied to mild to severe wear. Also, as the deviation of different scans does not affect the relocation calculation, and no matching and stitching is required, this method can be easily applied to a wide wear area and 3D surface wear analysis.