Abrasive wear behavior of NiAl and NiAl-TiB2 composites

Abrasive wear of NiAl and NiAl with 10, 20, and 40 vol.% TiB2 has been investigated using particles of different types and sizes. The addition of TiB2 as a particulate reinforcement to NiAl increases the hardness of the composite with respect to NiAl, and reduces the wear rate at all volume fractions on garnet and Al2O3 abrasives. Abrasion on SiC resulted in a minimum of the wear rate for the composite with 20% TiB2 for most conditions. The composite with 40% TiB2 consistently exhibited wear rates higher than the other composites when abraded on SiC. The only instance when the NiAl-40% TiB2 composite had a lower wear rate was when it was abraded on 16 and 37 mu m SiC particles. The NiAl-TiB2 composite serves as a model system for studying the effect of reinforcement volume fraction on composite wear behavior and is discussed in terms of a composite wear model developed by Axen and Jacobson. (C) 1999 Published by Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.