Abstract
Tailoring a material’s properties for low friction and little wear in a strategic fashion is a long-standing goal of materials tribology. Plastic deformation plays a major role when metals are employed in a sliding contact; therefore, the effects of stacking fault energy and mode of dislocation glide need to be elucidated. Here, we investigated how a decrease in the stacking fault energy affects friction, wear, and the ensuing sub-surface microstructure evolution. Brass samples with increasing zinc concentrations of 5, 15, and 36 wt% were tested in non-lubricated sphere-on-plate contacts with a reciprocating linear tribometer against Si3N4 spheres. Increasing the sliding distance from 0.5 (single trace) to 5,000 reciprocating cycles covered different stages in the lifetime of a sliding contact. Comparing the results among the three alloys revealed a profound effect of the zinc concentration on the tribological behavior. CuZn15 and CuZn36 showed similar friction and wear results, whereas CuZn5 had a roughly 60% higher friction coefficient (COF) than the other two alloys. CuZn15 and CuZn36 had a much smaller wear rate than CuZn5. Wavy dislocation motion in CuZn5 and CuZn15 allowed for dislocation self-organization into a horizontal line about 150 nm beneath the contact after a single trace of the sphere. This feature was absent in CuZn36 where owing to planar dislocation slip band-like features under a 45° angle to the surface were identified. These results hold the promise to help guide the future development of alloys tailored for specific tribological applications.
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Christian GREINER acknowledges funding by the German Research Foundation under Project GR 4174/1 and by the European Research Council (ERC) under Grant No. 771237, TriboKey. The authors thank Dr. Johannes SCHNEIDER for discussion and a critical reading of the manuscript.
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Zhilong LIU. He conducted his doctoral research in materials science and obtained his doctoral degree from the Department of Mechanical Engineering in the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in 2017, Germany. After his postdoctoral research at the Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung GmbH, he is currently working in Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH in Germany since 2018. His research interests range from materials’ microstructure characterization under tribological loading to advanced applications and technology of electron microscopy.
Philipp MESSER-HANNEMANN. He received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in mechanical engineering from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany, focusing on material science and medical engineering. Currently he is a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Biomechanics at the Hamburg University of Technology, Germany. His research interests include the material characterization of medical implants and the optimization of implantation process during total hip arthroplasty.
Stephan LAUBE. He obtained his M.S. degree in 2018 from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany. He is currently a research associate under the supervision of Prof. Martin Heilmaier. His research interest centers on the mechanical behavior of high entropy alloys (HEAs) at elevated temperatures. His current research is on the development of refractory metal-based compositionally complex alloys (CCAs) with improved mechanical properties.
Christian GREINER. He obtained his M.S. degree from the University of Stuttgart in 2004 and his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research in 2007, Germany. After a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania, he joined the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany, in 2010. He heads the materials tribology group, mainly funded through a Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). His research interests include microstructure property relations under a tribological load as well as bioinspired surface morphologies.
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Liu, Z., Messer-Hannemann, P., Laube, S. et al. Tribological performance and microstructural evolution of α-brass alloys as a function of zinc concentration. Friction 8, 1117–1136 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-019-0345-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40544-019-0345-8