Dry sliding wear behavior of rheocast hypereutectic Al-Si alloys with different Fe contents

The effect of iron content on wear behavior of hypereutectic Al-17Si-2Cu-1Ni alloy produced by rheocasting process was investigated. The dry sliding wear tests were carried out with a pin-on-disk wear tester. The results show that the wear rate of the rheocast alloy is lower than that of the alloy produced by conventional casting process under the same applied load. The fine particle-like δ-Al4(Fe, Mn)Si2 and polygonal α-Al15(Fe, Mn)3Si2 phases help to improve the wear resistance of rheocast alloys. As the volume fraction of fine Fe-bearing compounds increases, the wear rate of the rheocast alloy decreases. Moreover, the wear rate of rheocast alloy increases with the increase of applied load from 50 to 200 N. For the rheocast alloy with 3% Fe, oxidation wear is the main mechanism at low applied load (50 N). At higher applied loads, a combination of delamination and oxidation wear is the dominant wear mechanism.