Friction and wear behaviors of reciprocatingly extruded Al–SiC composite

This study focuses on the friction and wear behaviors of reciprocatingly extruded Al–SiC composites. To increase the strength of metal matrix composites and refine the grains of the matrix some deformation processes can be applied, such as reciprocating extrusion (RE). For this reason, RE was carried out on a 6061 Al matrix by a SiC (20 μm) reinforced composite one. The billets were extruded under a pressure of 17.5 MPa at 573 K with a 10:1 extrusion ratio. The reciprocating extrusions were carried out by using up to 15 passes. A homogeneous dispersion of SiCp and refined grain structure of the test materials were obtained by RE. The wear behavior and microstructures of these composites were examined with respect to RE passes. It was observed that there was no systematic relationship between the wear loss of the material and pass number of the RE. Similarly, an unsystematic relationship was also detected between the wear loss and hardness. On the other hand, the surface roughnesses of all samples increased dramatically after wear tests conducted under dry sliding condition but they were independent of the number of RE passes.