Dry sliding wear behavior of Mg2Si/Al composites against automobile friction material

The friction and wear behaviors of pure aluminium, unmodified and modified Mg2Si/Al composites have been investigated in a pin-on-disk configuration. The Mg2Si/Al composite is prepared via a simple cast route, and then the composite is modified by phosphorus, forming modified composite. The primary Mg2Si morphology changes from dendrite to polygon, with a size of ∼20 μm after modification. The wear rate increases with increasing load, but it varies from linear to rapid increase for all the test materials in the present work, i.e. mild and severe wear regime. The wear mechanism in severe regime is discussed. Similarly, with the increase of sliding velocity, the wear rate increases as well. One explanation is that, with the increase of sliding velocity, the surface temperature of the materials increase, which leads to the rise of plastic flow of surface and subsurface, and therefore the wear rate increases. Also, the reasons of difference on wear resistance of the three materials are discussed.