Friction and Wear Resistance of Ti₃SiC₂-SiC Composites

Ti_3SiC_2-SiC composites were in situ fabricated by spark plasma sintering technique from the raw powders of Ti,Si,C and small amounts of Al.Pin-disk friction and wear tests were conducted on Ti_3SiC_2-SiC composites.Testing results indicate that the friction coefficients and wear rates decrease with the increasing SiC contents for the Ti_3SiC_2-SiC composites against hardened steel,which indicates that the addition of SiC improves the friction and wear resistance of Ti_3SiC_2-SiC composites.The friction coefficient of Ti_3SiC_2 is a relatively stable value ranging from 0.8 to 1.0,while that of Ti_3SiC_2- 40vol%SiC composites displays minimum value of 0.5 at stable state.The wear rates decrease one order of magnitude for Ti_3SiC_2-40vol%SiC compared with monolithic Ti_3SiC_2.The improvement of the wear resistance of Ti_3SiC_2-SiC composites is due to the wear mechanism transition and good anti-oxidation of SiC.