When used to analyze the wear of rough surfaces, Archard’s law implicitly assumes that the surface subjected to wear is homogeneous and that its hardness is equal to that of the bulk material, an assumption that does not apply to asphalt mixtures, where, in the case of road pavements, the wearing surface is a mosaic of aggregate particles and binder (bitumen). This study examines this assumption by comparing two models of the wheel–asphalt pavement contact for four BA16 asphalt mixtures: a reference specimen (M0), a modified specimen (M1, characterized by high porosity), a specimen with aggregate replacement in its composition (M2, containing 3% plastic material in flake form), and a specimen with aggregate replacement in its composition (M3, containing 3% cellulosic material in pellet form). The macro-equivalent model treats the specimens as homogeneous media, whereas the meso-structural model explicitly incorporates 93 polyhedral aggregate particles within a representative volume element of 30 mm × 30 mm × 30 mm, under three loading scenarios: severe dry, wet, and thermal conditions, with extreme temperatures of 5 and 40 °C, respectively. The results were assessed using two independent indicators: a composite tribological degradation indicator and an indicator derived from Archard’s law. The explicit modeling shows that the wearing surface contains 16.2% mineral aggregate, compared with 25.2% in the bulk asphalt mixture, while the effective elastic modulus at the wearing surface is 10.5% lower than that of the bulk asphalt mixture. This ratio remains nearly constant (0.894–0.897) for all mixtures and loading scenarios. Both analyses yield the same ranking of wear susceptibility—M0 < M3 < M2 < M1—in all scenarios, with deviations below 4.3%. Tangential loading at the wearing surface triples the stress in the binder and has a predominant effect on wear compared with the normal tire pressure, while the maximum stress occurs precisely at the aggregate–binder interface.

The asphalt industry, essential for the global transport infrastructure, requires substantial investments to increase the durability of production facilities. The quality of asphalt depends, essentially, on the degree of drying of mineral aggregates. Therefore, the rotary dryer is of major importance for ensuring the quality of asphalt. The rotary dryer flights are subjected to an erosive-abrasive wear process during operation, generated by the impact of abrasive aggregates. These phenomena lead to severe degradation of the flights. Experimental research, carried out by the authors, on-site, aimed at identifying solutions to improve the wear behavior of the flights, by hardfacing with four wear-resistant materials (FLUXOFIL 51, FLUXOFIL 56, SAFER R 400, SAFER R 600), using the GMAW and SMAW processes. The results revealed a decrease in the wear rate and a flattening effect of the wear curve along the profile of the flight. The research targeted the upper rear surface of the flights, which is predominantly affected by erosive-abrasive wear phenomena. The resistance to abrasive wear of the flights was improved by hardfacing with FLUXOFIL 51 wear-resistant tubular wire, resulting in the lowest wear rate, especially between the areas marked 14–26, which are the areas most affected during operation.