Severe-to-Mild Wear Transition of Titanium Alloys as a Function of Temperature

Abstract

Dry sliding wear behaviors of Ti–6Al–4V and Ti–6.5Al–3.5Mo–1.5Zr–0.3Si alloys (code-named TC4 and TC11, respectively) against AISI 52100 steel under a load of 50–250 N at 25–600 °C were systematically investigated. For two titanium alloys, a severe-to-mild wear transition occurred with an increase in temperature. The critical transition temperatures of TC4 and TC11 alloys were 400 and 300 °C, respectively. Below the critical temperature, titanium alloys showed poor wear performance. As the temperature surpassed the critical temperature, the extremely low wear rates demonstrated excellent elevated-temperature wear performance of titanium alloys in the titanium alloy/steel tribo-system. The wear transition was characterized with the appearance of continuous, hard tribo-layer containing more oxides, especially Fe2O3, which showed a pronounced wear-reduced role. Adhesive and abrasive wear predominated in the severe wear regime; oxidative mild wear prevailed in the mild wear regime. Adhesive wear, abrasive wear and oxidative mild wear cooperated at the critical transition temperatures.