Dry-sliding tribological properties of ultrafine-grained Ti prepared by severe plastic deformation

Abstract This paper reports the tribological properties of ultrafine-grained (UFG) Ti prepared by severe plastic deformation under dry sliding against AISI52100 steel in ambient environment and at varying load and sliding speed. Worn surfaces of the UFG Ti were examined with a scanning electron microscope and X-ray photoelectron spectroscope. It was found that the wear rate of the UFG Ti under dry sliding was of the magnitude of 10−3 mm3 m−1, which is lower than that of the annealed coarse-grained (CG) Ti. The wear rate of the UFG Ti increased with the load, while it decreased with the sliding speed. The friction coefficient of the UFG Ti was in the range of 0.45–0.60, slightly lower than that of the CG Ti, and did not change with the load and sliding time after the initial transient period. The friction coefficient increased with increasing sliding speed to a maximum point and then decreased. The wear mechanism of the UFG Ti was micro-ploughing and delamination. The worn surfaces were covered by a TiO2 layer. These results demonstrated that UFG structures improved the wear resistance but did not significantly affect the friction coefficient of Ti.