Relations of counterface materials with stability of tribo-oxide layer and wear behavior of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si alloy

Dry sliding wear tests of Ti-6.5Al-3.5Mo-1.5Zr-0.3Si alloy (TC11 alloy) sliding against AISI 52100 and AISI M2 steels were performed under the load of 50-250 N at 25-600 °C. For two kinds of counterface materials, the titanium alloy presented totally different wear behaviours as the function of temperature. The appreciable variations of the titanium alloy sliding against different counterface materials were attributed the fact that a hard counterface caused unstable existence of tribo-layers by its microcutting action, thus resulting in the increase of wear rate. It is suggested that the hard counterface must be avoided as the counterface for the titanium alloy/steel sliding system.