Do short strokes against Si3N4 wear diamond faster than long strokes?

Wear and friction cause irreversible damage to the surfaces of a material, which
can increase the economic cost. It is therefore interesting to investigate if dia-
monds can help reduce this problem. We studied diamond-coated SiC-on-Si3N4
wear by sliding the diamond-coated SiC sphere on a Si3N4 wafer in a non-
repeated fashion. The experiment was conducted with three different stroke
lengths: a short stroke (800 x 25 μm), a middle stroke (80 x 205 μm), and a
long stroke (8 x 2005 μm). Additionally, an impact experiment was conducted
to examine whether impact and/or pull-off wear influences the wear of the dia-
mond. A Si3N4-on-Si3N4 sliding wear experiment was also conducted for two
different stroke lengths to observe how friction changes when there is no plow-
ing. The results showed that friction decreases faster for the short stroke than
for the long stroke in the diamond wear experiment. This is not the case for
the Si3N4-on-Si3N4 wear experiment, where the friction increases faster for the
shorter stroke (800 x 205 μm) than for the longer stroke (8 x 20005 μm). These
results show that impact and or pull-off play an important role in the wear
process.