Studies on Wear Behavior of Aluminium-Tin Alloy

Abstract

Aluminium and its alloys offer substantial potential for industrial applications because of special characteristics like lightness, excellent resistance to atmospheric corrosion in marine, urban and industrial settings and their ability to be lend to a huge variety of surface treatments like anodization. Aluminium and Aluminium based alloys are used in the automotive industries, parts operated at severe wear and tear conditions. In the present work, with the objective of studying the wear behavior of Al-Sn alloys, some samples of Al and 1% Sn composition alloy were taken. The sliding wear behavior using ball on plate wear tester was observed. Erosion wear behavior, under the influence of different parameters like velocity and angle of incidence of silica particles, sand flux rate etc. was observed. Microstructural characterization, X- ray diffraction studies and surface properties after sliding wear test were also observed. In order to increase the life and performance of Aluminium alloys in various industrial sectors, tribological characterization is critical since failure from wear can be detrimental. Due to the significance associated with tribology, this particular alloy has been studied for tribological properties. Variation of cumulative mass loss for different impingement angles were plotted and analyzed. The individual effects of control parameters was also observed. According to Taguchi analysis, of all the parameters affecting wear rate, “velocity” is the most significant parameter and angle of impingement plays a crucial role too. Corrosion behavior of Aluminium samples was also observed by immersing the Aluminium alloy samples in a sea water bath. Weight was taken after frequent intervals and thus material loss was determined from weight loss.