A test method to study the change in surface topography due to running-in of a rolling contact

A method is proposed to determine the change in surface topography during running-in of rolling contacts. Two types of experiments have been conducted in the present work to study the running-in of the pure rolling contact situation: repeated moving and general free rolling using a high accuracy measurement setup. The results show that the surfaces run-in with the proposed repeated moving contact method gives a fast running-in when compared with the general free rolling contact method. The proposed repeated moving contact method appears to be a good method to study the ideal or pure rolling contact situation because wear, as present in the general free rolling contact method, is avoided. Copyright (C) 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.