Two-body abrasive wear behaviour of aluminium alloy–sillimanite particle reinforced composite

In the present paper two-body abrasive wear behaviour of the cast aluminium alloy and aluminium alloy–10 wt.% sillimanite particle composite has been studied at different applied loads and abrasive sizes for different sliding distances. It was noted that the wear rate decreased with sliding distance and approached to a stable value and increased with increase in abrasive size and applied load irrespective of the materials. It was interesting to note that at 25 μm abrasive size, composite showed superior wear resistance to that of alloy but at 200 μm abrasive size, the former one suffered from inferior wear resistance than the later one irrespective of applied load. In the intermediate abrasive size (100 μm) the composite exhibited superior wear resistance than that of alloy at lower applied load, whereas at higher applied load the trend is reversed. These facts have been studied through wear surface, subsurface and wear debris analysis.