DRY SLIDING WEAR OF SHORT GLASS-FIBER-REINFORCED ZINC-ALUMINUM COMPOSITES

The present investigation aims to evaluate the wear rate of ZA-27 allo y composites reinforced with short glass fibres from 1 to 5% in steps of 2 wt%. The compocasting method was used to fabricate the composites . A pin-on-disc wear testing machine was used to evaluate the wear rat e. The results indicated that the wear rate of the composites was less than that of the matrix alloy, but increased with the increase in loa d and the sliding distance. It was found that above a critical applied load, there exists a transition from mild to severe wear both in the unreinforced alloy and in the composites, but the transition loads for the composites are much higher than that of the unreinforced alloy, a nd increases with the increase in weight% of glass fibres. The observa tions have been explained using scanning electron micrography (SEM) an alysis of the worn surfaces and the subsurface of the composites. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.