Wear Behavior of Al-SiC Metal Matrix Composite under various Corrosive Environments

This paper investigates the wear behavior under corrosive environments of LM6 based metal matrix composite reinforced with 5 wt% SiC prepared through the stir casting method. The experiments are carried out in a pin-on-disk tribotester varying five levels of normal load and sliding speed. The duration of each experiment is fixed for 30 minutes. Three environments viz. dry, deionised and dilute acid environments are considered to carry out the tribological tests. The composite exhibits slightly good wear resistance under low load and speed condition but weight loss increases as these parameters increases in all three environments. Maximum weight loss occurs in case of acid environment as it is more corrosive than dry and deionised environment. The wear surface of the composite is examined through the scanning electron microscopic (SEM) and energy dispersive x-ray analysis (EDX).