Dry sliding wear behavior of silver containing Ni-based composite-steel tribo-pair

Ni-based self lubricating composites containing four different amounts of silver were prepared by powder metallurgy (PM) route. The room temperature friction and wear behavior was investigated by carrying out dry sliding experiments against bearing steel using a ring-on-disk configuration. Tests were conducted at a constant load of 100N and different sliding speeds of 0.5, 1.0 and 1.5 m/s to analyze the effect of both the speed and the silver content on the wear behavior of the tribo-pair. The friction coefficient and the wear rate of the composites were found to decrease with increasing both the sliding speed and the silver content. The wear rate of the counterface was observed to be a little higher when it was siding against the composite having silver in comparison to that without any silver. However, the overall wear rate of the tribo-pair was found to decrease with increasing sliding speed and silver content.