| Summary: | In wearing contacts, a part of the wear debris is trapped between the surfaces, creating a wear debris bed. Many
researchers report such beds providing a degree of protection against further wear. It was hypothesized, that in an
annular contact, the level of debris entrapment increases with the width of the annulus resulting in decrease in
wear. To test this hypothesis, two series of experiments using EN1A steel and 6082T6 aluminium alloy annuli,
measuring 1, 2 and 4 mm wide were carried out. When steel was used, there was no clear correlation between ring
width and total mass loss or steady state wear rate. When aluminium was used, wear decreased with the ring width
according to both metrics. This behaviour appears to correlate with worn surface roughness, suggesting that the
worn surface roughness to be a parameter controlling debris entrapment
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