Effect of microstructure on dry sliding wear behaviour in CuZnAl shape memory alloys

The main objective of this work has been the characterization of the wear behaviour of the CuZnAl shape memory alloys in their different phases. The weight losses for the different alloys in function of the present phase, and of the M-s transformation temperature are studied. Adhesive wear tests, Pin-on-Disk, according to the ASTM-G99 standard have been carried out. After this a characterization of the wear surfaces by means of optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction have also been carried out. We can observe that the wear behaviour of this alloy depends on the shape memory properties. For the beta shape memory alloys a lineal relation of weight loss with Ms transformation temperatures are obtained. For the martensitic phase and beta+ martensitic phase the relation weight loss M, is not evident. (C) 2002 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.