Friction and wear resistance of Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites

Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites were in situ fabricated by spark plasma sintering technique from the raw powders of Ti, Si, C and small amounts of Al. Pin-disk friction and wear tests were conducted on Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites. Testing results indicate that the friction coefficients and wear rates decrease with the increasing SiC contents for the Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites against hardened steel, which indicates that the addition of SiC improves the friction and wear resistance of Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites. The friction coefficient of Ti₃SiC₂ is a relatively stable value ranging from 0.8 to 1.0, while that of Ti₃SiC₂-40vol%SiC composites displays minimum value of 0.5 at stable state. The wear rates decrease one order of magnitude for Ti₃SiC₂-40vol%SiC compared with monolithic Ti₃SiC₂. The improvement of the wear resistance of Ti₃SiC₂-SiC composites is due to the wear mechanism transition and good anti-oxidation of SiC.