Study of cavitation erosion and adhesive wear in CuSnNi alloys produced by different casting processes

The resistance against cavitation erosion and adhesive wear of commercial CuSnNi alloys obtained by continuous and centrifugal casting has been studied. The results show that the specimens produced by continuous casting with grain refinement exhibit higher cavitation resistance, while the material produced by centrifugal casting is more resistant under adhesive wear conditions. These discrepancies are attributed to differences in the damage mechanism and contact areas related to erosion and to sliding wear degradation. The effect of microstructural features such as grain size and chemical element distribution on the tribological performance of the tested materials is discussed.