DRY SLIDING FRICTION AND WEAR OF THE WC/TIC-CO IN CONTACT WITH AL2O3 FOR TWO SLIDING SPEEDS

The paper examines the friction and wear behavior of four different WC/TiC-Co cermets, where three of them are composed of 5%, 10% and 15% TiC additions, and a WC-Co grade without TiC, taken as a reference material for comparison purpose. The principal aim is to improve wear resistance to high sliding speeds (hot rolling) of the WC-Co material as a reference by adding previously-listed percentage of TiC. The samples (cermets) were prepared according to the powder metallurgy procedure, which includes the preparation of the powder mixture, its compression shaping and liquid phase sintering. Sintering was carried out at 1460 ° C, for 14 hours, in a reducing medium (H2). The TiC materials are added in order to boost hardness of the WC-15Co cermet and, consequently, its resistance to wear under thermomechanical conditions. The experiments are conducted using a pin-on-disc tribometer in contact with Al2O3 alumina ball at two sliding speeds of 0.5m/s and 0.75m/s, at a high temperature of 450°C, and a 20 N load.  It has been noticed that some recorded friction coefficients are unstable and exhibit many peaks during almost the whole friction test period. The obtained results from the SEM microscope show that the wear behavior of the new proposed material is improved, where it has been shown that, at the sliding speed of 0.75m/s, the greater the TiC percentage is, the lower the average friction coefficient will be. Also, for the speed of 0.5 m/s, the average friction coefficient is relatively more stable with the TiC percentage increase. Moreover, the obtained experimental results show an average wear rate decrease, with respect to reference grades (NA), that amounts to nearly 36% and 41% at the two sliding speeds P1 (0.5m/s) and  P2 (0.75m/s), respectively.