Investigation of the effect of Al-8B master alloy and strain-induced melt activation process on dry sliding wear behavior of an Al–Zn–Mg–Cu alloy

• The effect of Al–8B on the aluminum alloy produced by SIMA process was studied.
• Al–8B is an effective in reducing the grain and reagent fine microstructure.
• Reheating condition to obtain a fine globular microstructure was optimized.
• The optimum temperature and time in SIMA process are 590 °C and 10 min respectively.
• Wear performance of globular structure have a lower value than B-refined specimens.

This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of Al–8B master alloy and modified strain-induced melt activation process on the structural characteristics and dry sliding wear behavior of Al–12Zn–3Mg–2.5Cu aluminum alloy. The optimum amount of B containing master alloy for proper grain refining was selected as 3.75 wt.%. The alloy was produced by modified strain-induced melt activation (SIMA) process. Reheating condition to obtain a fine globular microstructure was optimized. The optimum temperature and time in strain-induced melt activation process are 590 °C and 10 min, respectively. T6 heat treatment was applied for all specimens before wear testing. Significant improvements in wear properties were obtained with the addition of grain refiner combined with T6 heat treatment. Dry sliding wear performance of the alloy was examined in normal atmospheric conditions. The experimental results showed that the T6 heat treatment considerably improved the resistance of Al–12Zn–3 Mg–2.5Cu aluminum alloy to the dry sliding wear. The results showed that dry sliding wear performance of globular microstructure specimens was a lower value than that of B-refined specimens without strain-induced melt activation process.