Tribological and thermomechanical analysis of CaO (quicklime) particulates filled ZA-27 alloy composites for bearing application

Abstract

This research work investigates friction and wears behaviour of CaO filler / particulate reinforced ZA-27 alloy composites. Pin-on-disk tribometer confining to ASTM G 99 standard with EN-31 hardened steel disc was used to simulate the tribological performance experimentally. The tribological parameters were evaluated over a normal load range of 5–45 N, sliding velocity of 1.047–5.235 m/s., sliding distance of 500–2500 m, environment temperature of 25–45℃ and filler content range of 0–10 wt%. The various alloy composites were fabricated under vacuum environment by high-temperature gravity casting technique. The steady-state specific wear rate and coefficient of friction were evaluated under different boundary conditions and thereafter Taguchi design of experiment methodology was adopted to compute the experimental specific wear rate of the proposed alloy composites. The dynamic mechanical analysis and thermo-gravimetric analysis study were also performed in order to observe the thermal characteristics of the composites at higher temperature. Finally, the surface morphology of the worn samples was performed using field-emission scanning electron microscope to understand the wear mechanism prevailed at rubbing surfaces and then atomic force microscopy analysis was studied to evaluate the surface profile of the worn sample. At the end, energy-dispersive spectrometer analysis was also performed to find out the elemental compositions of the worn alloy composites.