Wear in cast titanium carbide reinforced ferrous composites under dry sliding

Wear in composites containing 8, 15 and 25 vol.% of titanium carbide (TiC) in a pearlitic matrix synthesized by solidification processing, has been te sted under dry sliding in a block on ring Timken wear testing machine under loads of 131.8, 187.5 and 254.5 N and sliding velocities of 25.67 x 10(-2) , 41.07 x 10(-2) and 56.47 x 10(-2) m/s. The volume of wear varies linearly with the sliding distance under various test conditions as predicted by Ar chard's equation. The Volume wear rate increases linearly with increase in load as predicted by Archard's equation, more rapidly in the composites con taining lower Volume fraction of carbide. With increase in TiC content, the volume wear rate reduces presumably due to higher wear resistance of TiC b ut the rate appears to reach a steady value at higher TiC content. The wear coefficient of the composite reduces with increase in TiC content in the c omposite. However, the extent of reduction is more in case of composites wi th lower TiC content. When the individual contribution to the wear coeffici ent by the constituents have been evaluated by a rule of mixture it appears that TiC has a negative wear coefficient which could be an artifact develo ping due to application of a simple rule of mixture to a situation of compl ex interaction as it exists in composite. However, wear coefficient of the matrix pearlite varied from 1.77 to 1.88 x 10(-4) which is close to that ob served by other workers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved .