Wear Characteristics of Particulate Reinforced Metal Matrix Composites Fabricated by a Pressureless Metal Infiltration Process

Abstract

The effect of size and volume fraction of ceramic particles with sliding speed on the wear properties were investigated for metal matrix composites fabricated by a pressureless metal infiltration process. The particulate metal matrix composites exhibited about 5.5 - 6 times greater wear resistance compared with AC8A alloys at high sliding speed, and by increasing the particle size and decreasing the volume fraction the wear resistance improved. The wear resistance of the metal matrix composites and AC8A alloy represented different aspects: the wear loss of the AC8A alloy increased with sliding speed linearly, whereas, the metal matrix composites displayed more wear loss than the AC8A alloy in the slow-speed region. However, a transition point of wear loss was found in the middle-speed region, which shows the minimum wear loss. Furthermore, wear loss in the high-speed region exhibited almost the same value as the slow-speed region. In terms of wear mechanism, the metal matrix composites showed abrasive wear at a slow to high sliding speed generally. However, the AC8A alloy showed abrasive wear at low sliding speed and adhesive and melt wear at a high sliding speed.