Effect of the amount of SiC, number of strokes, and applied load on the reciprocating wear behavior of Al-SiC composites

Abstract

The wear behavior of Al/SiC composites prepared by stir casting technique is investigated to find out the effects of the weight percentage of SiC, load, and the number of strokes on a shaper machine. Metal matrix composite (MMC) pins are prepared with different weight percentages of SiC (10%, 15%, and 20%). The tests are carried out with different load conditions (25, 50 and 75 N) and different number of strokes (420,780 and 1605 strokes). Wear surfaces of tested samples are examined in scanning electron microscope (SEM). Hardness and impact tests are also carried out on the MMC samples. The experimental results show that the hardness of composites increases with an increase in SiC particle, and the impact strength decreases with increase in SiC content. The volume loss of MMC specimens are less than that of the matrix alloy. Moreover, the temperature rise near the contact surface of the MMC specimens increases with increase in wt% of SiC, load, and number of strokes. The coefficient of friction decreases with increase in load and the number of strokes.

Keywords

• al-sic composites
• casting
• electron
• metal-matrix composites (mmcs)
• microscopy
• wear