The Effects of TiC Reinforcement on Thermal, Electrical and Dry Sliding Wear Behaviour of Aluminium Matrix Nanocomposites

The present work is to investigate the thermal, electrical and dry sliding wear behaviour of a aluminium matrix composite reinforced with dissimilar particle size (≤ 200 nm and 2 μm) of titanium carbide particles. An aluminium matrix composite with 0, 5, 10 and 15 vol.% TiC reinforcement was prepared by using powder metallurgy. A pin-on-disc apparatus was broadly used to investigate the wear behaviour of the Al/TiC nano composites. Wear test was carried out for normal load of 5 N, 10 N, 15 N & 20 N at constant sliding velocity of 2.61 m/s at room temperature. The variations of the coefficient of friction (COF) and specific wear rate (SWR) with the varying sliding distances (1000 m, 1200 m, 1400 m and 1600 m) for variable load was plotted and analysed. Find out the thermal property of Al-TiC composite by using Thermogravimetry (TG) / Differential scanning calorometry (DSC). To study the dominant sliding wear mechanism was analysed for various test condition, while the worn surface was investigated by using scanning electron microscropy (SEM) and the respective polynomial and power law model was broadly developed using curve fitting technique. Further, it was found that the SWR is to increase with the load and sliding distances. Hardness and electrical conductivity of composites have been varied based on particle size variation of TiC. Keywords: Dry sliding wear, nanocomposite, friction, nano-reinforcement, worn surface, thermogravimetry Cite this Article Muthuraman S, M. Sivaraj. The Effects of TiC Reinforcement on Thermal, Electrical and Dry Sliding Wear Behaviour of Aluminium Matrix Nanocomposites. Nano Trends: A Journal of Nanotechnology and Its Applications. 2017; 19(2): 28–41p.