Tribological behavior of brass fiber brush against copper, brass, coin-silver and steel

• Brass fiber brushes were prepared by filling and etching aluminum fibers.
• The brass fiber brush exhibits high and smooth friction coefficient.
• Wear rates of brush against copper and brass are higher than coin-silver and steel.
• The friction and wear mechanisms of metal fiber brushes were briefly discussed.

The brass fiber brushes with various packing fractions were prepared by the method of filling and dissolving aluminum fibers. The compression tests of brass fiber brushes and brass block were conducted. The tribological behavior of the selected brass fiber brush of 23% packing fraction sliding against the copper, brass, coin-silver and steel discs was investigated. The microstructure, worn surface and wear debris of the brush and counterface materials were observed and analyzed to investigate the involved wear mechanisms. The compressibility of brass fiber brushes increases with the increase of packing fraction, and is much higher than the brass block. The brush against the four discs exhibits significantly high friction coefficient values range from 0.8 to 1.0 but the curves are fairly smooth. The brass fiber brush sliding against copper and brass discs experiences severe adhesive wear and gives a high wear rate compared with that against coin-silver and steel discs. The wear behavior of the brass fiber brush strongly depends on the counterface materials under dry sliding condition. The differences of the friction and wear mechanisms between fiber brushes and solid brushes were also discussed.