Hn. Liu et K. Ogi, Dry sliding wear of an Al2O3 continuous fibre reinforced Al-Cu alloy against steel counterface, J MATER SCI, 34(22), 1999, pp. 5593-5599
The tribological properties of Al2O3 continuous fibre reinforced Al-4.43 wt
%Cu alloy composites with a fibres' volume fraction of about 0.55 were mea
sured for five types of fibre orientations under a dry sliding contact with
a bearing steel. Fibres were in a plain perpendicular to wear surface and
parallel to sliding direction, and had the angles 0 degrees, 45 degrees, 90
degrees, or 135 degrees with respect to the direction of motion of the cou
nterface; or were anti-parallel the sliding direction. The results show obv
ious dependence of wear characteristics on fibres orientation: for the 45 d
egrees, 90 degrees, and 135 degrees orientations, the larger the fibres' an
gle, the lower the volume loss; while the 0 degrees orientation resulted in
a higher steady-state wear rate than those of the 45 degrees, 90 degrees,
and 135 degrees, orientations, except that the anti-parallel orientation ca
used the highest volume loss at all sliding distances. The wear mechanism w
as inferred as a oxidation-microgrooving process through the analyses of wo
rn surface and subsurface with the aid of optical microscope and scanning e
lectron microscope. Also it was found that the fibres' broken and subsurfac
e deformation had played an important role in causing wear anisotropy. (C)
1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers.