Explore the scholarly record.

Abstract

The dry sliding wear behavior of the stir-cast ADC12/8 wt.% SiC composite fabricated using an innovative U-shaped stirrer blade design was investigated using a replicated 3³ full factorial design of load, sliding speed and sliding distance, giving 81 experimental runs with 3 replicates to investigate the specific wear rate (SWR). The three times replication provided a direct estimate of pure experimental error with 54 degrees of freedom, against which each effect was tested by ANOVA. Sliding speed was the significant individual parameter affecting SWR with 24.50% of the total variation, followed by load and sliding distance with 11.19% and 2.81% respectively. The interaction terms load × sliding distance and cumulative interaction effects contributed 24.02% and 60.22% of the total variation respectively, suggesting that their coupled interaction rather than a single parameter effect dominates the wear behavior. The three-factor interaction alone contributed 20.14%, exceeding each main effect other than sliding speed, and indicated that the influence of any one parameter cannot be separated from the other two. The smallest experimental SWR was found at 30 N, 2.0 m/s and 600 m, and was verified by three independent confirmation experiments, conforming with the original measurements to within 3.6% (p = 0.335). Abrasive wear prevailed at low-speed conditions, while increased sliding speed promoted the mixed abrasive–adhesive regime. With increased sliding speed, a thin oxide-rich tribo-layer formed, leading to oxidative wear and hence less material loss. With increased severity of operating conditions, the degradation of tribo-layers, delamination and third body abrasion became predominant.