Ideally we will always try to stay in the plowing zone as much as possible, since this will cause the least amount of wear. As a general approximation, the transition between severe cutting wear and slower plowing wear takes place when the abrasive material is less than 1.8–2.1 times harder than the steel’s hardness.

For granite, this transition to slow wear starts at a steel hardness of about 340 HBW as shown in the graph below, and then drops rapidly as the hardness of the steel increases.

The graph shows the sliding wear rate for granite. Because of the way the steel interacts with the minerals in granite, the transitions will occur at different steps. The top red dotted line describes the cutting mechanism and the bottom gray dotted line describes the plowing curve. The solid black line indicates the wear rate and transitions from minerals interacting with the steel.

Sliding wear rate showing the cutting mechanism (red dotted line), the plowing mechanism (gray dotted line) and the wear rate (black solid line). The result for specific abrasive material and steel grade combinations can be calculated with Hardox® WearCalc.