High-temperature dry sliding wear behavior of hybrid aluminum composite reinforced with ceria and graphene nanoparticles

Wear and friction occur naturally in the mating surfaces of moving machine parts. Overcoming friction can waste as much as 30 percent of the energy used. The last ten years have seen research on optimizing the amount of a particular nanoparticle additive for a certain tribological feature. The primary goal of this study is to improve tribological materials by combining two types of nanoparticles as reinforced to an aluminum base alloy. Hybrid Aluminum Nanocomposites (HANCs) made of cerium oxide or ceria nanoparticles (CeO2) and graphene nanoplatelets (GNPs) reinforced in Al-6061 alloy were subjected to a wear test at temperatures ranging from 250 °C to 1000 °C at different loads ranging from 15 N to 60 N, and the sliding velocity and distance held constant at 3 m/s and 2000 m, respectively. The nanocomposites were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy-Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS). The wear rate of the Al-6061/3CeO2/3GNPs was found to be superior and the same is confirmed by the worn-out surface and wear debris analysis. At different high temperatures and at various loads; abrasion, adhesion oxidative, plastic deformation, and delamination wear were observed as wear mechanisms during the dry sliding wear test. However, there were challenges encountered during the wear test, such as extreme operating conditions, realistic modeling, test standardization, and multiscale wear analysis.