Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Zircon Sand Reinforced Al–Si Alloy

The emerging demand of light weight alloys and composites for the engineering and structural applications leads to explore the possibility to develop new techniques to achieve materials of high performance. In the present study, Al–Si/zircon sand reinforced composite has been developed via spray forming technique. Dry sliding wear behavior of as cast Al–Si base alloy and spray formed Al–Si/zircon sand reinforced composite containing 8% Vf of zircon sand has been analyzed. An isotropic wear property of spray formed composite has been checked by selecting the spray formed preform in both horizontal and vertical sections of deposit. The wear tests which were carried out at loads of 14.7, 24.5, 34.3, 44.1, and 53.9 N have shown that spray formed composite is more wear resistant in comparison to the cast Al–Si alloy. Moreover, wear coefficient in case of composite is also found to be lower than base alloy. Optical and scanning electron microscopies have been carried out to furnish a suitable explanation for observed wear behavior of composite and alloy.