Mechanical and tribological properties of newly developed Tribaloy alloys

Outstanding combination of mechanical, wear and corrosion performance has been achieved in Laves intermetallic materials, termed Tribaloy alloys. In these two-phase alloys the solid solution provides high mechanical strength and fracture toughness while the Laves intermetallic phase offers excellent wear resistance. However, conventional Tribaloy alloys usually have low tensile strength and fracture toughness compared with ductile materials due to the large volume fraction of Laves phase, which has limited their application in many cases. The present research is aimed at developing advanced Tribaloy alloys with increasing ductility. Two new cobalt base alloys were developed in this research. The specimens were fabricated with a centrifugal casting technique. The material characterization was performed using the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), scanning electron microscope (SEM), indentation and ball-on-disc tribological techniques.