Tribological Tayloring of Ceramic Composites

Abstract

AbstractWith respect to their excellent material properties ceramics are of interest as candidate materials for tribological applications. The friction and wear behaviour of ceramics is often superior to that of metallic materials. Furthermore, an essential improvement of tribological performance will be possible by tailoring of ceramics in the process of powder preparation and sintering technique. Silicon Carbide (SiC) shows interesting friction and wear behaviour at room temperature, even under unlubricated running conditions but is very sensitive against effects of environmental humidity and shows high friction and high wear in the absence of water vapour. The tribological performance of SiC can be improved considerably by adding substantial amounts of TiC and TiB2 to the microstructure thus creating ceramic particulate composite materials.Various composites in the quasi ternary system SiC‐TiC‐TiB2 were prepared by a ceramic manufacturing process including sintering temperatures up to 2180 °C. Comparative tribo tests were performed under unlubricated oscillating sliding motion in dry, normal, and moist air and under water lubrication with SiC balls and Al2O3 balls as counter bodies. The friction is affected by the relative humidity (RH) but barely at all by the composition of the composites. The wear resistance of the composites was found to be improved considerably by addition of TiB2 in the range from 20 to 60 %. The highest wear resistance of the system wear was found when Al2O3 was used as counter body material.