Dry sliding wear behaviour of multi walled carbon nanotubes reinforced aluminium composites produced by powder metallurgy technique

The nanocomposites of Multi-Walled Carbon Nano Tubes (MWCNTs) having weight fractions of 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75 and 1.0 wt%, reinforced in 200 mesh size Aluminium (Al) particles, produced through Powder Metallurgy (PM) process. Uniform distribution of MWCNTs was achieved using ultrasonic blending and mechanical planetary ball milling. Dry sliding wear behavior of fabricated composites were studied in accordance with the ASTM G99-95a standard. Wear behavior were studied for various sliding distance, load, and disc rotation speeds. The results showed that, wear rate increased with increasing sliding distance and load because of an increased of temperature during an investigation. However, the wear rate decreased with an increased speed due to the formation of a stable tribolayer. Further Al 0.5 wt% of MWCNT nanocomposites were found to have better wear resistance characteristics compared to others. The resistance to wear enhanced because of bonding among matrix and MWCNTs and the formation of tribo layer was characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy.