Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Metal Matrix Composites: A Statistical Approach

The dry sliding wear behavior of SiCp and SiCp-graphite-reinforced aluminum alloy composites produced by liquid metallurgy is studied by means of a pin-on-disc type of wear-test rig. This study evaluates the influence of independent parameters such as sliding speed (S), applied load (L), and sliding distance (D) on dry sliding wear behavior of composites. A Taguchi design for the experiments is used to collect the data in a controlled way, and a linear regression model is developed. This article tries to model dry sliding wear with wear parameters using a statistical approach. The results obtained in this work enable the influence and significance of various parameters and their interactions to be better understood. It was found that SiCp-Gr (graphite)-reinforced composites exhibit less volume loss when compared with SiCp-reinforced composites. Sliding speed is the most significant factor affecting wear behavior followed by L and D. The effect of interactions between the S and the L is more pronounced in SiCp-Gr composites.