Effect of nanosilica additive particles on both friction and wear performance of mild steel/CuSn/SnBi multimaterial system

This paper presents an experimental study of the tribological behaviour of a multimaterial system using conventional powder metallurgy process with SiO2 nanoparticles. Four configurations were studied with and without SiO2. The tribological properties of the sintered materials were analysed by wear experiments at lubricated conditions on a ball disc wear test rig. The results are compared with those of conventional material for journal bearing. These show less variation of the friction coefficient and less wear rate for the materials with SiO2 compared to the ones without SiO2 and to those of the reference material. The dominant wear mechanism is adhesive wear, accompanied by mild abrasive wear.