Dry Sliding Friction and Wear Behaviour of Titanium Alloy (Ti-6Al-4V)

Abstract

Friction and wear are the most commonly encountered industrial problems leading to the replacement of components and assemblies in engineering. There have been great advances in the development of aerospace technology because of the use of titanium alloys. Titanium alloys have wide range of applications for which they have received considerable interest recently because they show an astonishing range of mechanical properties. The present investigation covers the study of dry sliding friction and wear of the Ti6Al4V alloy, which alone covers about 50% of the total world production of titanium alloys. The main objective of this study is to investigate the dry sliding friction and wear behaviour of titanium alloy (Ti-6Al-4V) sliding against EN31 steel. The results show that the wear rate of the Ti6Al4V alloy decreases with increasing sliding velocity and decreasing normal load with few exceptions thus showing typical transition characteristics. The average coefficient of friction decreases as the normal load increases with few exceptions. Also the average coefficient of friction increases as the sliding distance increases for all loads and sliding velocities. The average length of biggest, medium and smallest wear debris was found to be 1.026 μm, 0.711 μm and 0.401 μm respectively.

Keywords

• friction
• wear
• ti-6al-4v alloy
• dry sliding