High-temperature wear and friction properties of ZE41 alloy were evaluated using a pin on disc tribometer. The microstructure of the alloy has the equiaxed grains of 72±20µm decorated with the rare earth rich precipitates. Result shows that wear rate decreases upto 100°C and then increases until 250°C for all the loading conditions. The wear mechanism study revealed that the underlying thin oxide tribolayer minimizes the wear rate upto 100°C. Above 100°C, thickening of oxide layer due to enhanced oxidation rate results in breakage of the layer. Further, the increase of temperature softens the alloy which deforms and fractures in the subsurface at low critical load resulting in more delamination wear. The combined effects of oxidation and delamination wear are accentuated with the increase of load and temperature resulting in the increase of the wear rate. Comparing the influence of load and temperature on the wear rate, contact load is more.
This study highlights the influence of carbon nanotubes (CNT) and silicon carbide (SiC) particles on microstructure, nanohardness and tribological behavior of copper nanocomposites. All the samples were fabricated via conventional powder metallurgy process involving high-energy ball milling, consolidation, sintering and hot forging. Microstructure of copper matrix composites was analyzed using both Transmission and Scanning Electron Microscope along wtih X-ray diffraction that was used to study the dispersion, bonding of reinforcements with matrix and identify the different phases formed during fabrication. Nanoindentation test was conducted to obtain nanohardness as a function of multiple reinforcement's content. Sliding wear test in dry conditions was conducted using pin-on-disc tribometer as per ASTM G99 standards. SEM microstructure revealed uniform dispersion of CNTs and SiC particles in the copper, which led to significant improvement in nanohardness. Nanocomposite with 3wt.% CNTs had nanohardness of 1.82 GPa while pure copper had 0.94 GPa indicating significant improvement. The tribological test showed that nanocomposites had excellent wear resistance in comparison with pure copper.
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