The effect of silicon carbide addition on the transformation temperatures and wear resistance of Cu-based shape memory alloys

Abstract

In this work, the effect of SiC addition was studied on the transformation temperature and wear resistance of Cu-Al-Ni shape memory alloys. SiC was added with three different ratios of 0.5, 1, and 3% to the base alloy, where a ratio above and below 1% was chosen to study the effects and 1% as an intermediate barrier followed by casting and homogenization at 900 °C. Some tests were carried out, such as Calorimetric Differential Scan (DSC), Optical Microscope test (OM), the scanning electron microscopy (SEM), energy dispersion spectrometer (EDS), and X-ray diffraction (XRD), Hardness and wear tests. The results show OM and SEM test reveals both phases of the martensite which is AlCu3 (β) and Al 7Cu23Ni (γ). Also, the addition of SiC shows a visible effect on phase formation and transformation temperature. Hardness and wear tests revealed that the addition of SiC particles to SMAs increases the hardness of the samples until it reaches 465 while showing a decrease in the wear rate with the increase in the percentage of reinforcements.