Production of Al-Si3N4 Powder Metal Composite Material and Investigation of Wear Behavior

Aluminum and its alloys as a structural materials are preferred in many fields, especially in the automotive and aerospace sectors. Conversly to many superior properties of aluminum and its alloys the fact that its properties such as hardness and wear resistance are far from the expectations in some applications makes the production of aluminum matrix composite materials more valuable and necessary. In this study, it is aimed to determine the effect of Si3N4 ratio on wear behavior of aluminum matrix composite material produced by powder metallurgy method. Mixed aluminum powders containing 5 %, 10% and 15% by weight α-Si3N4 were pressed in the die under 500 MPa pressure and 10 mm diameter and 15 mm length block samples were produced. Then pressed samples were sintered in an atmosphere controlled tube furnace for 2 hours at 650 °C. After the characterization study such as density and hardness measurements, dry sliding wear test all of the composite materials were performed by using pin-on-disk method. The tests were carried out on the TIRIBOMETER T10 / 20 abrasion tester according to ASTM G99-05. Dry sliding wear tests of composite were carried out under the different load (5-10-15 N) and at 1.41 m/s sliding speed for 2000 m wear distance. Wear test results showed that composite materials containing silicon nitride at different ratio have better wear resistance according to matrix powder metal parts produced under the same conditions. The highest wear resistance and hardness values were seen at composite materials