Investigation of Reinforcement Content, Load and Sliding Speed on the Tribological behaviour of Copper based Silicon Carbide Composite using Design of Experiments

Objectives: In this paper, the effect of reinforcement content, load and speed on the wear behaviour of Cu/SiC metal matrix composite are investigated using design of experiment. Methods: A statistical model is proposed to find the significant factor which affects the wear resistance properties of the prepared composite material. Three samples of composites were fabricated using different SiC content by stir casting. The wear behaviour of composites was evaluated for a variety of load and sliding speed at ambient temperature. Findings: It is found with the increase in SiC content the rate of wear of the composite decrease while with increase in load the wear rate increased. Also with increase of sliding speed wear rate is increased. Among the three variable parameters chosen for the study viz. reinforcement content, load and sliding speed, the load is the mainly prominent factor that affects the wear resistance of the composite. Applications/Improvements: This study can be enhanced further by using different reinforcement’s combinations and parameters. Also the wear tests can be performed at elevated temperatures.