The Archard equation was developed much later than Reye's hypothesis [it] (sometimes also known as energy dissipative hypothesis), though both came to the same physical conclusions, that the volume of the removed debris due to wear is proportional to the work done by friction forces.
Theodor Reye's model[1][2] became popular in Europe and it is still taught in university courses of applied mechanics.
[3] Until recently, Reye's theory of 1860 has, however, been totally ignored in English and American literature[3] where subsequent works by Ragnar Holm[4][5][6] and John Frederick Archard are usually cited.
In 2022, the steady-state Archard wear equation was extended into the running-in regime using the bearing ratio curve representing the initial surface topography.
Therefore, the total wear debris produced per unit distance moved,
Archard interpreted K factor as a probability of forming wear debris from asperity encounters.
Recently,[13] it has been shown that there exists a critical length scale that controls the wear debris formation at the asperity level.