This chapter discusses the causes and effects of wear along with prevention methods. It covers abrasive, erosive, erosion-corrosion, grinding, gouging, adhesive, and fretting wear. It also discusses various forms of contact-stress fatigue, including subsurface-origin fatigue, surface-origin fatigue, subcase-origin fatigue (spalling fatigue), and cavitation fatigue.

This chapter covers common types of erosion, including droplet, slurry, cavitation, liquid impingement, gas flow, and solid particle erosion, and major types of wear, including abrasive, adhesive, lubricated, rolling, and impact wear. It also covers special cases such as galling, fretting, scuffing, and spalling and introduces the concepts of tribocorrosion and biotribology.

Stainless steel retains strength and has excellent oxidation resistance from room temperature to nearly 1000 deg C relative to competitive materials. This chapter focuses on the high-temperature oxidation of stainless steel by oxygen or water vapor. It begins by discussing the thermodynamic conditions and electrochemical nature of oxidation and providing information on transient oxidation. This is followed by a description of Wagner's theory for metal oxidation. The volatile nature of Cr 2 O 3 is then reviewed. The chapter further discusses the causes and preventive measures of spalling and cracking of oxide scale. It ends with a section providing information on oxidation behaviors under less-oxidizing atmospheres.

This chapter describes the characteristic damage of a mid-air explosion and how it appears in metal debris recovered from crash sites of downed aircraft. It explains that explosive forces produce telltale signs such as petaling, curling, spalling, spikes, reverse slant fractures, and metal deposits. Explosive forces can also cause ductile metals such as aluminum to disintegrate into tiny pieces and are associated with chemicals that leave residues along with numerous craters on metal surfaces. The chapter provides examples of the different types of damage as revealed in the investigation of two in-flight bombings.