The work is carried out to investigate the dry sliding wear behavior of 40 micron sized B4C reinforced LM29 alloy metal matrix composites. In the present work LM29 alloy was taken as the base matrix and B4C particles as reinforcement material to prepare metal matrix composites by stir casting method. For metal matrix composites the reinforcement material was varied from 0 to 9 wt. % in steps of 3 wt. %. The wear resistance of metal matrix composites was studied by performing dry sliding wear test using a pin on disc apparatus. The experiments were conducted at a constant sliding speed of 400rpm and sliding distance of 3000m over a varying load of 1, 2, 3 and 4 kg. Similarly experiments were conducted at a constant load of 4 kg and sliding distance of 3000m over a varying sliding speed of 100, 200, 300 and 400rpm. The results showed that the wear resistance of LM29-3, 6% and 9% B4C composites were better than the unreinforced alloy. The wear in terms of height loss found to increase with the load and sliding speed. To study the dominant sliding wear mechanism for various test conditions, the worn surfaces were analyzed using scanning electron microscopy.
LM29 Alloy, B4C, Microstructure, Wear, Worn Surface