Reciprocating wear of a A390 aluminium alloy under varying stroke length: A statistical analysis to deduce the factor contribution

Abstract

Stroke length is one of the significant factors contributing wear loss in bidirectional sliding condition. Most of the research works on reciprocating sliding reported increase in wear loss with stroke length. However, in all these studies the reciprocating frequency was constant for the set of stroke lengths studied. Experimental proof needed whether increase in wear is due to increase in stroke alone. Statistical analysis on wear data can reveal the relative contribution of each of the factors individually and in combination. Present work reports the reciprocating wear study of A390 alloy on an in house developed tribometer with reciprocating sliding motion. The average relative velocity of sliding, distance slid and duration of test kept constant in the first set of experiments. Three stroke lengths of 50 mm, 100 mm and 150 mm was attempted. Normal loads tried were 15 N, 30 N, 45 N, 60 N and 75 N. Experiments repeated for average relative sliding velocities of 0.2 m/s, 0.3 m/s and 0.4 m/s. Wear test conducted under a constant load of 45 N, average sliding speed of 0.4 m/s for three sliding distances of 400m, 800m and 1200m. Statistical analysis then performed on the wear data to obtain factor contribution on wear loss. The results proved that wear loss does not increase with stroke length alone.