Under the same applied load, mild steel shows a much deeper indentation than alumina, indicating lower hardness and greater plastic deformation, which makes it more prone to wear.

Alumina exhibits higher hardness and modulus along with a larger H/E ratio, leading to greater elastic recovery and reduced permanent surface damage during contact.

The significantly higher H³/E² value of alumina reflects strong resistance to plastic flow and ploughing, thereby minimizing material removal and debris formation.

Overall, nanoindentation results clearly predict that alumina will have substantially better wear resistance than mild steel, demonstrating how indentation-derived parameters can be used to estimate tribological performance.