Effect of Intermetallic Phases on the Tribological Behaviour of Iron and Aluminium alloy

Abstract

The Alloys based on Iron-Aluminium have important prospective for operational applications at elevated temperature because they maintain an outstanding elevated temperature corrosion resistance and they possess a lower density in compare with the other Iron - based materials such as stainless steels and cast iron. The cost of Ion-Aluminium based alloys has comparatively low because of the widely availability of their manufacturing and handling processes. Fe-Al alloy is acquiring its desirability in many business applications for its wear properties andcorrosion properties, which is due to the presence of Aluminium as an alloying element. The current study is focused on the investigation of the effect of the changes in phases due to heat treatment on the Tribological behavior of Fe-Al alloy. This experiment contains the analysis of microstructure by means of microscope, crystalline phases and its structure properties by means of X-Ray Diffraction analysis. Specimen were heat treated at different temperatures (600oC, 750oC, 950oC, 1100oC) and then followed by water quenching. The soaking time is being 1 hour. The analysis of microstructure, XRD and Vickers hardness test were done the post heat treatment process. Then the dry sliding wear behavior of the heat treated samples were done by the Ball-on-Plate tribometer. After that the SEM analysis of the worn surfaces were done. Then the samples were subjected to sea water and acid rain sample for the investigation of its corrosion resistance, that is for finding the phases which has corrosion resistance. SEM study of these corroded surface illustrated that the acid rain corroded samples showed some crack propagation on the surface that may be due to hydrogen and the sea water corroded sample shows deposition of cations present in sea water. It has been found that the sample which was heat treated at 950oC has highest hardness value in comparison with other samples as well as, it has the high resistance force against the indentation. And the material which was heat treated at 1100oC has less hardness value but it is ductile and it may has resilience property. It has less resistance against the indentation. From the corrosion test we found the phase FeAl has showed the most resistance against corrosion from sea water and acid rain. We have also seen that there were changes in phases after the heat treatment in various temperatures.