The main goal of the present study is to develop criterion allowing evaluating the local wear level within the area of the frictional contact. It is well known that the wear at the interface between two contacting (mating) surfaces is affected by the level of relative slip (sliding) and the level of friction (tangential stresses) at the interface. Actually, vanishing of one of the above mentioned factors (friction or sliding) leads to decrease of the wear even while the second factor remains considerable. It is naturally to assume, that there exists another physical grade taking into account both friction and sliding during evaluation of wear level. Such a value is the work of friction force during frictional sliding. Friction forces (tangential stresses at the interface of contact) are not distributed uniformly. The same picture takes place with the local relative sliding at the interface. So, the work that friction force makes during frictional sliding is also distributed within the contact non-uniformly. In order to compare an intensity of wear at the different local points within the contact area it is proposed to evaluate the specific work of the local friction force on the local relative sliding as the criterion of the local wear: Here is the tangential stress; is the relative sliding at the specific point of the interface. This criterion may be used for optimization of geometrical (shape and dimensions) and physical (material) properties of the object (system) for minimization of the wear. Below it is shown an application of such approach for analysis and minimization of wear to tribological pair consisting of wafer and holder. For evaluation of the stress distribution and sliding field at the interface of the frictional contact, the finite element model was developed using commercial package ANSYS.
