Stainless steels are characterized as having relatively poor wear resistance and tribological properties, but they are often required for a particular application because of their corrosion resistance. This article describes the classification of stainless steels and wear. Stainless steels have been classified by microstructure and are categorized as austenitic, martensitic, ferritic, or duplex. The main categories of wear are related to abrasion, erosion, adhesive wear, and surface fatigue. The article presents a list that proposes the alloy family that could be the optimal selection for a particular wear mode. The corrosion modes include dry sliding, tribocorrosion, erosion, erosion-corrosion, cavitation, dry erosion, erosion-oxidation, galling and fretting.

Tribocorrosion is the subject dealing with complex, synergistic effects of chemical and mechanical conditions that cause wear. This article begins with a discussion on oxidative wear and corrosive wear, as well as quantitative measurements of corrosion, mechanical wear, and wear-corrosion effects. It illustrates the mechanism of corrosive-abrasive wear and discusses the factors affecting two-body wear. These factors include particle shape, size, density, and hardness; slurry velocity; slurry particle angle of attack; solids concentration in the slurry; hydrodynamic factors; corrosion products and the mass transfer of oxygen. The article describes slurry particle impingement tests and grinding tribocorrosion tests, as well as the factors to be considered for mitigating corrosive wear, such as materials selection, surface treatments, and environment modifications.

Rolling is the process of reducing the thickness or changing the cross section of a workpiece by compressive forces applied through a set of rolls. This article emphasizes flat rolling and illustrates basic flat-rolling process used to reduce the thickness of a rectangular cross section. It provides a discussion on hot rolling, cold rolling, and warm rolling, as well as lubrication in rolling. The article reviews the lubrication for iron-base and nickel-base materials, light metals, copper-base alloys, and titanium alloys. It discusses the wear mechanism in rolling: abrasion, adhesion, and fatigue, as well as oxidative and corrosive wear. Surface modification techniques, such as hardening by induction heat treating, weld overlay, thermal spray coating, coating via physical vapor deposition (PVD), and laser surface treatment, are also discussed for improving roll service life.