Dry friction and wear performance of SiC 3D continuous ceramic frame reinforced 7075Al alloy

The dry friction and wear behavior of 7075 Al alloy reinforced with SiC 3D continuous ceramic network against Cr12 steel was studied with oscillating dry friction and wear tester under the testing conditions of 70 °C, 30 min, and the load range of 40–100 N. The experimental result shows that the characteristic of abrasive wear and oxidation wear mechanisms are present for 3D continuous SiC/7075 Al composite. 3D continuous network ceramic as the reinforcement can avoid composite from the third body wear that usually occurs in traditional particle reinforced composite. Under low load, the composite with low volume fraction of ceramic reinforcement exhibits better wear resistance due to the homogeneous reinforcement distribution with small pore size; on the contrary, under high load, the composite with high reinforcement volume fraction exhibits better wear resistance because of the coarse frame size. Hard SiC frame leads to the wear of Cr12 steel mainly. The frame with high volume fraction corresponds to the high Fe content.