Wear Behaviour of In Situ Al/TiB2 Composite: Influence of the Microstructural Instability

In this present work, the in situ Al (A380)/5 wt%TiB2 composites were fabricated through salt–melt reaction using halide salts such as potassium hexafluorotitanate (K2TiF6) and potassium tetra fluoroborate (KBF4) salts as precursors. The composites were produced at four different melt temperatures (700, 750, 800, 850 °C). The formation of particle was confirmed from XRD results. The wear behaviour of Al/5 wt% TiB2 composite was investigated by varying the wear test parameters such as sliding temperature (25, 100, 150, 200 °C), applied load (10, 20, 30, 40 N), sliding velocity (0.4, 0.7, 1, 1.3 m/s). The microstructure of Al/5 wt% TiB2 composite was correlated with the wear characteristics of the composites. The wear resistance of Al/5 wt% TiB2 composite was significantly improved due to the presence of TiB2 particle in Al matrix material. The composite produced at melt temperature 800 °C showed a higher wear resistance at applied load: 10 N, sliding temperature: 25 °C and sliding velocity: 0.7 m/s. The wear mechanism for each of the tested condition was identified from the worn surfaces using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). ANOVA test was carried out to find out significant factor for the wear resistance of composite. The checking of adequacy of experimental value for the wear behaviour of composite for different testing condition was analysed by residual plots using statistical software.