Tribology of metal matrix composites

Abstract

Metal matrix composites (MMCs) are an important class of engineering materials that are increasingly replacing a number of conventional materials in the automotive, aerospace, marine, and sports industries due to their lightweight and superior mechanical properties. In MMCs, nonmetallic materials are embedded into the metals or the alloys as reinforcements to obtain a novel material with attractive engineering properties, such as improved ultimate tensile strength, ductility, toughness, and tribological behavior. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to summarize the tribological performance of various MMCs as a function of several relevant parameters. These parameters include material parameters (size, shape, volume fraction, and type of the reinforcements), mechanical parameters (normal load and sliding speed), and physical parameters (temperature and the environment). In general, it was shown that the wear resistance and friction coefficient of MMCs are improved by increasing the volume fraction of the reinforcements. As the normal load and sliding speed increase, the wear rate of the composites increases and the friction coefficient of the composites decreases. The wear rate and friction coefficient decrease with increasing temperature up to a critical temperature, and thereafter both wear rate and friction coefficient increase with increasing temperature. The nano-composites showed best friction and wear performance when compared to micro-composites.