Investigations into dry-sliding wear behaviour of a novel composite (aluminium-magnesium-silicon-copper-silicon carbide) produced by powder metallurgy route

Metal-matrix aluminium composites are satisfactory successor not only for steels, but also for aluminium-alloys in several automotive units and components. There are various paths to get light-weight materials with-out compromising their toughness, strength and safety demands. Tests on dry-sliding or un-lubricated pin-on-disc tests can be performed to obtain the wear-characteristics of metal-matrix composites built on aluminum. In the present study, we studied the behavior of wear resistance during sliding of metal matrix aluminium composites (AMMC) at sliding speeds of 1.5 m/s and loads of 20 N and 40 N in a normal environment, and experiments have been conducted using pin-on-disk tribometer (Make: DUCOM tribometer). The composites were manufactured by powder treatment and presented a number of problems, such as defective bonds and inter-facial product reactions, which alter the tribological and mechanical properties. The results have shown that wear-rates of the prepared composites are much lesser than those of matrix-alloy and decreased further with increasing silicon carbide content. As the normal loads increases, the cracks and combination of abrasions, delimitation and wear of the adhesives of silicon carbide particles were observed. The composite samples were studied using a scanning electron microscope before and after the wear tests and systematically analysed.