A novel wear angle determination algorithm for wear image based on direction correlation of wear scar

A lubricant is a substance that lessens friction and wear between mechanical parts. A good quality lubricating oil is required for protecting the mechanical equipment and reducing energy consumption. Its performance index (friction coefficient) could be measured by the four-ball wear test. For the morphological analysis of testing data from the four-ball wear test, determination of wear angle is very important for measuring the wear spot diameter, validity of the four-ball wear test and recognition of abnormal wear scar. On the basis of character analysis and image processing technology, a novel wear angle determination algorithm for wear scar is presented in this article. The direction of the wear scar (wear angle) is determined based on angle transformation and grey consistency (the smallest change of grey level). Simulation results show that the algorithm has high precision, good robustness and less time consuming. The average absolute error of our method is 0.8° and the absolute error of 95% of samples is <4°. The average runtime per frame is 3.896 s in the simulation platform.