**5. Conclusions**

High assembly forces reduce the relative micro-motions between the head and neck at the taper junction. However, they can also increase the contact pressures and the contact region at the interface, which, in turn, may intensify the fretting wear process and, consequently, increased material removal. The results of this study showed that the e ffect of the last two parameters (contact pressure and contact length) was more dominant in wearing out the surface of the studied CoCr/CoCr junction with a taper angle mismatch of 0.01◦. Hence, when increasing the assembly force, the degree of material loss increased for this particular design and material combination of the junction studied in this work.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, K.F., R.H.O. and M.T.; Data curation, K.F. and H.B.; Formal analysis, K.F., R.H.O. and M.T.; Methodology, K.F., R.H.O., H.B. and M.T.; Resources, R.H.O.; Software, M.T.; Supervision, R.H.O. and M.T.; Validation, K.F. and R.H.O.; Visualization, K.F.; Writing—original draft, K.F. and R.H.O.; Writing—review & editing, R.H.O. and M.T.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Acknowledgments:** The authors acknowledge the support of an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship for Khosro Fallahnezhad's PhD.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
