Influence of Temperature and Applied Load on Adhesion and Abrasion Wear Characteristics of Ti6Al4V Alloy

1. Introduction

Exploration of the machine components under operating condition is tremendously increasing in tribological research. Particularly the moving components which are subjected to high friction and wear under elevated temperature environments. The morphology of the worn surface and subsurface of the tribo pairs were changes due to deformation of the surface and near surface by friction and wear and thereby transition of the materials takes places in between the surfaces of the tribo-pair during operation. Even the machine components operates under vacuum environments are also subjected to such events. However, no such study has been reported to detailed investigation of the phenomenon and govern mechanism during operation of the machine components under vacuum environments. Ti64 alloy was gathered increasing economic demand for its sustainability of high temperature application (Budinski et al., 1991). Enhanced corrosion resistance, toughness and excellence fatigue and fracture toughness during operation under elevated temperature, makes them superior alternatives to the conventionally available materials for fabrication of machine components for high temperature applications. Several investigations have been reported to examine the surface, subsurface, debris morphology of Titanium alloys considering for biomedical application, high temperature creep behavior etc. some studies are also reported to explore the dry sliding wear characteristics of different Titanium alloys with different grade based on applications under normal atmospheric conditions (Berns & Franco, 1997, Yadav et al. 2018). Zheng et al. (2020) studied the trobilogical characteristics of Ti64 alloys against Cr12MoV steel under dry sliding condition. The effects of load and temperature on wear rates has been examined. The wear mechanism was observed to changing from delamination and slight oxidative (at 0.11 ms^-1) to delamination and abrasive at 0.22 ms^-1. A critical temperature has been identified at which tribo-oxide layer was formed that can dominate the wear rates of the materials. Oxidation was found to be the dominant wear mechanism under elevated temperature. Martínez et al. (2020) studied the influence the synthesis parameters on the tribological characteristics of Ti64 alloys. Four different processing route has been implemented to fabricate the alloys. It was reported that the α and β phase size and the distributions were dominating the wear rates and coefficient of friction (COF) for all the alloys synthesized by different processing route. The test specimens containing foam structures has been provided superior wear resistance and therefore suggested for an alternative materials for biomedical applications.