Friction and Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Powder Metallurgy-Processed Cu-Tin Alloy with Molybdenum Disulphide Additions: a Factorial Design Approach

Abstract

In this study, MoS2 added copper-tin alloy was made by powder metallurgy method. The friction and wear characteristic of the produced composites was evaluated by using pin-on-disc apparatus. It has been found experimentally that a loss in mass due to wear with two loads and two sliding speeds for two sliding distances. Based on the design of experiment, the influence of the percentages of reinforcement, load, sliding distance, and sliding speed on both the friction coefficient and specific wear rate were calculated. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) used to examine the influence of the parameters on both the wear rate and the coefficient of friction. From this study, it is noted that coefficient of friction of the composites decreased considerably with the addition of MoS2. The load and weight percentage of MoS2 are the most significant parameters that affect the specific wear rate and where as load is the control factor for coefficient of friction. The 7 wt.% of MoS2 composites exhibited a very low coefficient of friction. The observations reveal that the specific wear rates of the composites decreased considerably with the addition of MoS2.To study the wear morphology, SEM, worn surface analysis and EDS is used.