Closure to “Discussion of ‘Wear Rate and Entropy Generation Sources in a Ti6Al4V–WC/10Co Sliding Pair’” (2017, ASME J. Tribol., 139(6), p. 061608)

We thank Dr. Abdel-aal for his comments and discussion. First, we would like to emphasize that the main purpose of our work was to include abrasion, besides the typically studied dissipation mechanisms in sliding pairs, i.e., thermal gradient and heat conduction. A second premise was to consider the friction and wear processes from the point of view of the systems theory. To do so, we defined a control volume corresponding to a severely deformed portion of material, or as Dr. Abdel-aal refers to, the mechanically affected zone. Such volume of material is exposed to an amount of thermal energy sufficient to initiate tribofailure, so this energy level is directly associated with the systems damage. The control volume is, as a whole, affected by the thermal gradient, however, only a small part of it contains a density of energy high enough to cause failure, so we are assuming that the majority...