Int. J. Surface Science and Engineering, Vol. 5, Nos.

5/6, 2011 463

Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear

mechanism of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe slides against
tungsten carbide under dry and cryogenic conditions

T.C. Yap*
Faculty of Engineering and Technology,
Multimedia University,
75450 Melaka, Malaysia
E-mail: yaptc99@yahoo.com
*Corresponding author

N.S.M. El-Tayeb
Faculty of Engineering,
University Malaya,
50603 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
E-mail: nabil.eltayeb@yahoo.com

P.V. Brevern and K.S. Sim

Faculty of Engineering and Technology,
Multimedia University,
75450 Melaka, Malaysia
E-mail: p.brevern@web.de
E-mail: kssim@mmu.edu.my

Abstract: Wear mechanisms of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe (Ti54) sliding against

tungsten carbide under dry and cryogenic liquid nitrogen conditions were
studied through the analysis of wear debris. The morphology of titanium alloy
Ti54 wear debris collected from different sliding conditions was studied using
scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy
(EDS). In general, two different shapes of wear debris were detected. These are
flake-type debris that had been collected from dry sliding condition and cutting
chip-like debris from cryogenic sliding. The analysis suggests that different
wear mechanisms, which are adhesive wear generated at dry sliding and
abrasive wear at cryogenic condition, were in action.

Keywords: analysis of wear debris; wear test; cryogenic cooling.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Yap, T.C.,

El-Tayeb, N.S.M., Brevern, P.V. and Sim, K.S. (2011) ‘Correlation of wear
debris morphology and wear mechanism of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe slides
against tungsten carbide under dry and cryogenic conditions’, Int. J. Surface
Science and Engineering, Vol. 5, Nos. 5/6, pp.463–481.

Copyright © 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

464 T.C. Yap et al.

Biographical notes: T.C. Yap is a PhD student at the Faculty of Engineering

and Technology, Multimedia University, Malaysia. He received his MSc from
Universiti Sains Malaysia and BEng (Mech) from University of Technology,
Malaysia.

N.S.M. El-Tayeb graduated from Helwan University in Cairo, with a BSc

degree in 1977, studied MSc at Aston University in Birmingham, UK (1982),
and obtained his PhD from Leeds University in Leeds, UK (1986). He worked
as a Lecturer, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor at
Helwan University, Multimedia University, and British University in Egypt.
Currently, he serves as a Professor at the Faculty of Engineering, University
Malaya, Malaysia. His current research interests lie in the mechanical and
tribological characterisation of polymers and their composites including
synthetic and natural fibres, mechanical treatment of non-ferrous and polymeric
materials, and diagnosis of surfaces deterioration.

P.V. Brevern was the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Technology at
Multimedia University, Malaysia. He received his PhD from Technical
University Hamburg – Harburg, Germany. His research interests are creep feed
grinding and tribology.

K.S. Sim has delivered significant research outputs in the area of electron
microscopy (EM). Currently, he works as a Professor at Faculty of Engineering
and Technology, Multimedia University, Malaysia.

1 Introduction

Nowadays, titanium alloys are applied in many industries (aeronautical structure, military
equipments, biomaterial, marine structure and etc.) owing to their high strength,
lightweight, corrosion resistance and biocompatibility characteristic. However,
conventional titanium alloys such as Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) has poor wear resistance
(Budinski, 1991). The low thermal conductivity is one of the main factors that
responsible for the poor tribological properties of these titanium alloys. During sliding,
the generated heat dissipates slowly and causes interface temperature to rise and this in
turn deteriorates the tribological performance of sliding titanium. Therefore controlling
the interface temperature would contribute to a better sliding performance of titanium
alloys.
Several wear mechanisms, such as delaminative wear, oxidative wear, adhesive wear
were reported to occur at different operating conditions when Ti64 alloy slide against
various types of counterface (Alam and Haseeb, 2002; Dong and Bell, 1999).
Furthermore, In high speed machining of titanium and inconel alloys, conventional
cutting fluids were reportedly failed to reduce cutting temperature (Kitagawa et al.,
1997). For this reason, cryogenic fluids (Wang and Rajurkar, 2000) were recommended
to replace the conventional cutting fluid. Among the functions of cryogenic fluid are
effective removal of heat from the cutting zone and lowering cutting temperatures,
modification of frictional characteristics at the tool/chip interface, and changing the
properties of the workpiece and tool material (Hong and Zhao, 1999). Extensive work has
been reported on cryogenic machining by several researchers. However, the
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 465

understanding of the wear and friction behaviour under cryogenic sliding from
tribological point of view is still insufficient.
Introducing cryogenic fluid into the interface has a strong potential in controlling the
tribological behaviour of sliding surfaces which is one of the main objectives of the
current work. In this respect, wear behaviour and wear mechanism of a new titanium
alloy Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe (Ti54), developed by Titanium Metal Inc (TIMET, USA),
slides against tungsten carbide is not yet explored. Although analysis of wear debris can
give a significant information on wear mechanisms, most of the previous studies were
focused on the analysis of worn surface and not on the wear debris (Zhang and Schlarb,
2009). Therefore, in current study, the wear mechanisms of titanium alloy Ti54 slides
against tungsten carbide at different environment and operating conditions (speed, load
and duration) are studied through the analysis of wear debris.

2 Experimental work

2.1 Tested materials

The material studied in the current work is a new titanium alloy Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe
(Ti54) which was supplied by Titanium Metal Inc (TIMET, USA). The composition and
properties of this alloy Ti54 are listed in Table 1 and Table 2.
Table 1 Chemical composition of titanium alloy

Alloy Al V Mo Fe C O N Ti
Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe 4.5–5.5 3.0–5.0 0.4–1.0 0.2–0.8 0.1 0.2 0.03 Balance
max max max
Source: TIMET (No date)
Table 2 Properties of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe

Properties
Phase α+β
3
Density (g/cm ) 4.44
Ultimate tensile strength (MPa) 958 @ 50°C
Yield strength (MPa) 910 @ 50°C
Thermal conductivity (W/m.K) 6.96 @ 25°C
Specific heat (J/g.K) 0.54 @ 25°C
Young’s modulus (GPa) 110
Source: TIMET (No date)

2.2 Tribological test

Detailed descriptions of tribometer set up [shown in Figure 1(a) and Figure 1(b)] under
dry and cryogenic conditions have been given in our previous article (El-Tayeb et al.,
2009). Briefly, the titanium pins (specimens) of size 5 mm × 5 mm × 20 mm were rubbed
against tungsten carbide disc (25 mm diameter and 9 mm thickness). Two sets of
466 T.C. Yap et al.

experiments were performed; the first was conducted at room temperature under dry
condition while the second, under cryogenic liquid nitrogen (LN2). The LN2 jet was
directed to the interface between the titanium alloy pin and the counterface disc using a
nozzle as shown in Figure 1(b). In both sliding conditions, the titanium pin was pressed
against the circumference of the disc via a load lever loaded by dead weight.

Figure 1 Cryo-tribometer used in the experiments, (a) schematic diagram of pin-on-disc

apparatus (b) cryo-tribometer set-up (see online version for colours)

(a)

cryogenic test

(b)

Before and after each test, pins and discs were weighted using a digital scale with 0.001 g
resolution (Setra El-410S) and the weight loss was calculated. In this study three
independent variables with five levels were selected. The variables are normal loads,
(P = 6.4 to 22.96 N), sliding speed, (V = 0.1295 to 0.971 m/s), and sliding time, (t = 2.64
to 9.36 min). During the experiment, the pin was rubbed against the circumference of the
disc. The change in linear sliding speed (V) was obtained by adjusting the rotation speed
(N) of tungsten carbide disc and calculated by using equation V = (2πrN)/60, where r is
the radius of the tungsten carbide disc (constant in this case).
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 467

2.3 Post-test characterisation

In order to elucidate the wear processes and thus the fundamental mechanisms, the worn
surfaces of the alloy pins and the wear debris were examined using scanning electron
microscopy (SEM) (ZEISS SUPRA 35VP) and energy-dispersive spectroscopy (EDS).
The chemical compositions of the elements in the worn surfaces and wear debris were
also analysed using EDS.

Figure 2 Effects of speed, load, sliding distance on wear rate of titanium alloy ti54, (a) effect of
sliding speed, V (b) effect of applied load, P (c) effect of sliding distance, L (see online
version for colours)

(a)

(b)
468 T.C. Yap et al.

Figure 2 Effects of speed, load, sliding distance on wear rate of titanium alloy ti54, (a) effect of
sliding speed, V (b) effect of applied load, P (c) effect of sliding distance, L (continued)
(see online version for colours)

(c)

3 Results and discussion

3.1 Wear rate at different operating conditions

The effects of load, speed and distance on the wear rate of titanium alloy Ti54 produced
from experimental results are shown in Figure 2. Figure 2(a) and Figure 2(c) shows that
wear rate has decreasing trends with increasing sliding speed or distance. Meanwhile,
Figure 2(b) shows a slight increase in the wear rate with the increase of the load from
14.7 N to 19.62 N, and cryogenic wear rates are consistently less than those obtained
under dry sliding.

3.2 Wear debris

In this section wear debris collected from dry sliding tests of Ti54 against tungsten
carbide at the extreme speed, extreme load and extreme distance are analysed and
discussed. The wear debris collected from the lowest speed test (0.13 m/s) is shown in
Figure 3(a). Small number of wear debris is collected and the majority of the debris is in
the form of small flake (about 60μm length and 25-40μm width). EDS results shown in
Figure 3(b) and given in Table 3 suggests that the wear debris is mainly delaminated
from the titanium alloy Ti54, since the main element detected is titanium. Furthermore,
signs of material transfer (tungsten and carbon) and oxidation (oxygen) can also be seen.
The high amount of detected carbon seems to be originated from a carbon tape that holds
the debris inside the SEM. The wear debris is collected from dry sliding at the highest
sliding speed (0.97 m/s); normal load of 14.715 N and sliding time of 6 min is shown in
Figure 4. In general, the flake-type debris collected from the highest sliding speed is
larger than the debris collected from the lowest speed test. The length and width of the
larger debris are around 300 and 100 μm respectively. Moreover, debris of different
surface features can be identified. The debris marked with ‘spectrum 1’ shows a rough
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 469

surface while the debris marked with ‘spectrum 2’ shows a smoother ‘slid’ surface. EDS
results analysis in Table 4 show that the main element of the debris is titanium and this
suggests that the debris is from titanium alloy. However, different surface features and
different chemical compositions suggest that they have different wear mechanisms,
which are, adhesive wear and oxidative wear marked with spectrum 1 while delamination
wear marked by spectrum 2. More flake-type debris and less oxygen are observed in the
wear debris collected from dry sliding of Ti54 at higher sliding speed (0.97 m/s).

Figure 3 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at
normal loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.1295 m/s and sliding time of 6 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum of selected region
(see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

Table 3 Weight percentage of element at the selected location in Figure 3

Element C O Al Ti W
Region 1 28.87 22.25 3.70 44.72 0.46
470 T.C. Yap et al.

Figure 4 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at normal
loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.97 m/s and sliding time of 6 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from region 1
(c) EDS spectrum from region 2 (see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

(c)
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 471

Table 4 Weight percentage of element at the selected locations in Figure 4

Element O Al Ti V W
Region 1 19.22 2.79 67.11 2.83 8.05
Region 2 – 5.69 88.31 4.22 1.78

Figure 5 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at
normal loads of 6.464 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 6 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum of selected region
(see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

Table 5 Weight percentage of element at the selected location in Figure 5

Element C O Al Ti Mo W
Region 1 11.74 25.92 2.77 58.29 0.48 0.81
472 T.C. Yap et al.

Figure 6 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at
normal loads of 22.964 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 6 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from selected region
(see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

Table 6 Weight percentage of element at the selected location in Figure 6

Element O Al Ti W
Region 1 19.55 7.73 75.05 1.67
Figure 5 and Figure 6 show the wear debris collected from two extreme loads (6.46 N
and 22.96 N) when Ti54 slide against tungsten carbide. Flake-type debris is collected
from both cases. EDS results shown in Figure 5(b) and given in Table 5 suggest that the
debris collected from the lowest load (6.46 N) went through delamination (from titanium
alloy) and oxidation. Debris with two different surfaces is again observed from the debris
collected from dry sliding test of Ti54 at the highest normal load (22.96 N), as shown in
Figure 6(a). Most of the debris is in the form of flakes, with different dimensions. EDS
examination on the debris shows that the main composition is titanium (as given in
Table 6).
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 473

Figure 7 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at
normal loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 9.364 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from region 1 (c) EDS
spectrum from region 2 (see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

(c)
474 T.C. Yap et al.

Table 7 Weight percentage of element at the selected locations in Figure 7

Element C O Al Ti W
Region 1 – 44.94 3.04 51.20 0.82
Region 2 9.17 29.03 4.74 53.44 3.62

Figure 8 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after dry sliding at
normal loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 9.364 min
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from selected region
(see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

Table 8 Weight percentage of element at the selected location in Figure 8

Element C Al Ti
Region 1 9.84 5.66 84.5
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 475

Figure 9 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after cryogenic sliding at
normal load of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 9.364 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from region 1
(c) EDS spectrum from region 2 (see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)

(c)
476 T.C. Yap et al.

Table 9 Weight percentage of element at the selected locations in Figure 9

Element C O F Al Ti
Region 1 3.56 – – 2.68 93.76
Region 2 3.31 7.81 7.91 2.38 78.58

Figure 10 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after cryogenic sliding at
normal loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 9.364 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from region 1 (c) EDS
spectrum from region 2 (see online version for colours)

(a)

(b)
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 477

Figure 10 EDS analysis of the wear debris of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe after cryogenic sliding at
normal loads of 14.715 N, sliding speed of 0.55 m/s and sliding time of 9.364 min,
(a) SEM micrograph of the wear debris (b) EDS spectrum from region 1
(c) EDS spectrum from region 2 (continued) (see online version for colours)

(c)

Table 10 Weight percentage of element at the selected locations in Figure 10

Element C O Al Ti W
Region 1 3.88 7.42 3.72 73.47 11.52
Region 2 3.15 5.48 1.53 89.85 -

The wear debris collected from the longest dry sliding duration test of Ti54 is shown in
Figure 7 and Figure 8. In general, several forms of wear debris can be observed from
Figure 7(a). Debris marked with ‘spectrum 1’ is in the form of granulated structure, with
EDS analysis (Table 7) showing the main compositions being titanium and oxygen. This
suggests that the debris is from an oxide of titanium. In contrast, debris marked with
‘spectrum 2’ is in the form of metallic flake and EDS analysis suggests that it is
delaminated from titanium alloy. Besides these two forms, debris in the forms of small
particles can also be seen. Interestingly, cutting chip-like debris was detected from dry
sliding test in the same operating condition. Figure 8a shows the cutting chip-like debris,
which is rare in debris collected from dry sliding test. The main elements of the cutting
chip like debris are titanium (84.5 wt %), carbon (9.84 wt %) and aluminium (5.66 wt %),
as shown in Figure 8(b) and given in Table 8. This indicates that the debris is originated
from titanium alloy (Table 8). The wear debris at the shortest dry sliding duration of Ti54
was not possible to collect and therefore no comparison could be made.
Under certain operating condition of cryogenic sliding, LN2 jet washed away the
debris and therefore it was hard to collect debris at short distances. However, Figure 9(a)
shows the collected debris from cryogenic wear test of Ti54 at the longest sliding
distance and intermediate load and speed. The wear debris is in the form of long chips
with 500 μm in length and 40 μm in width. The debris marked with ‘spectrum 1’
originated from titanium alloy Ti54 and is in the shape of flatten debris. While debris
marked with spectrum 2 is cutting chip-like debris. EDS results (shown in Table 9)
indicate that 78.58 wt % of the debris is cutting chip like debris from titanium alloy.
Meanwhile the EDS results, show that there is 7.9 wt % of fluorine, which its origin is
not known. Figure 10 shows another pairs of debris collected under same test condition.
The debris on the left side (marked with spectrum 1) has a ‘granular’ surface while the
478 T.C. Yap et al.

debris on the right side (marked with spectrum 2) has a flatten surface. EDS analysis on
debris (Table 10) indicates that they are from titanium alloy, since the main element is
titanium.

3.3 Discussion
Results of wear rate and wear debris in the previous sections imply that the occurrence of
different wear mechanisms depends on sliding environments and on special tribological
interaction which occurred between the sliding pair of titanium alloys and tungsten
carbide. Under dry test condition, sliding motion between the titanium alloy and tungsten
carbide generates heat on both surfaces. An increase in sliding speed and/or sliding time
produces more heat and results in higher interface temperature (Basu et al., 2009).
Whereas the increase the applied load increases the real contact area and further increases
the contact temperature. It should be realised that mechanical properties of the sliding
surface depend on the interface temperature (Dwivedi, 2004), where thermal softening
occurs when the surface temperature is higher than the 0.42 Tm (melting temperature) of
the alloy (Qiu et al., 2007). When surface temperature exceeds this value, it reduces the
flow strength/hardness and therefore increases the wear rate (Dwivedi, 2004). Therefore,
the wear rate of titanium alloy increases by increasing the applied load. In addition to
that, the increase in the surface temperature causes contamination of the sliding surface
due to oxidation (Dwivedi, 2004).
On the other hand, increasing sliding distance (sliding time) causes more titanium
alloy to be transferred to the counterface (tungsten carbide surface). At longer distance,
the sliding between titanium alloy and tungsten carbide becomes titanium alloy against
titanium alloy. Therefore, different wear mechanism takes place and the wear rate
reduces with sliding distance. Therefore factors such as speed, load and sliding distance
significantly affect the wear mechanisms of the sliding surface.
In a previous study (Rigney, 1997), it was reported that sliding of metals produced a
very large plastic shear strains at the sliding interface and this was followed by large
strain gradients in the near surface material. At high strain rates, metals and alloys
frequently show narrow zones of highly localised deformation, called ‘adiabatic shear
bands’ (Liao and Duffy, 1998). The localisation of plastic flow in narrow zone is
typically attributed to the plastic instability resulting from thermal softening which can
overcome the effect of strain hardening in a deformed region. This plastic instability can
occur when the local rate of heat generation due to plastic flow exceeds the rate of heat
dissipation to the surrounding materials (Liao and Duffy, 1998). The shear bands are
favoured as initiation sites for failure, which occurs by void nucleacation, growth and
coalescence inside the thermally soften regions (Xue et al., 2002). Because of low
thermal conductivity of titanium alloy, the generated heat at the interface dissipates into
the surrounding at a rate lower than the rate of the heat generation, especially under dry
sliding condition at higher speeds and loads. As a result, adiabatic shear band is formed
in titanium alloy. Further strain (due to further sliding) causes void nucleated within the
shear band. The void’s growth increases further and eventually coalesces, creating
complete separation (Xue et al., 2002). As a result, delamination occurs and the flake-like
metallic debris is dominated in dry sliding. The flake-like debris is reported to occur at
sliding condition that is conductive to adiabatic type shear localisation phenomena
(Wilson and Alpas, 1999). In a very recent report, (Zhang et al., 2010) the flake-like
 Correlation of wear debris morphology and wear mechanism 479

debris comes from processes such as surface and subsurface deformation, formation of
cracks, extension of the cracks and delamination of material.
In addition, high interface temperature causes thermal softening of sliding surfaces
(Qiu et al., 2007) and in the current work, the worn surfaces show features of ductile
fracture and therefore the wear mechanism can be categorised as adhesive wear. Several
studies, reported that adhesion is produced when Ti64 slide against steel 709M40 under
lubricated condition (Dong and Bell, 2000), Ti64 slide against harden steel (Alam and
Haseeb, 2002) and Ti64 against Al2O3-TiO2 coated steel (Ceschini et al., 2008).
Besides delaminative and adhesive wear mechanisms, oxidative wear is also involved
in dry sliding. Heat generated from dry sliding promotes oxide formation on the surface
of titanium alloy that is exposed to oxygen. However, this thin oxide film may be
removed easily when subjected to sliding motion (Dong and Bell, 1999, 2000; Molinari
et al., 1997; Straffelini and Molinari, 1999). This is confirmed in the present work by the
high amount of oxygen detected in most of the debris collected from dry sliding tests.
Oxidative wear is more noticeable at dry sliding test at lower speed. Similar finding was
reported by Straffelini and Molinari (1999). This is because at higher sliding velocity, the
sliding surface is subjected to higher strain rate. As explained earlier, delaminative wear
is due to coalescence of void within the shear band at high strain rate and new surface is
formed when a complete separation occurred (i.e., wear debris left the surface of titanium
alloy). Therefore, the rate of new surface formation at high sliding velocity is higher
compared to the rate at low sliding velocity condition. In other words, at high sliding
velocity, a new surface is frequently exposed to air. In contrast, same surface is exposed
to oxygen for longer duration under low sliding condition.
In addition, due to the low relative motion, the oxide films formed on the titanium
alloy’s surface can stay longer before they reached a critical thickness and were removed
from the surface. As a result, more oxide and less flake-type debris were detected from
debris collected at low sliding speed and relatively larger amount of flake-type debris
with less oxygen were found in debris collected at high sliding speed. In other words,
oxidative wear is more active under low sliding speed and delaminative wear due to the
formation of adiabatic shear band which is dominated at higher sliding speed.
In cryogenic sliding tests (especially at low sliding speed), LN2 jet reduces the
generated heat and prevents/delays thermal softening from taking place. Therefore,
adhesive wear and galling are reduced. LN2 also reduces the true contact area by two
approaches; first, maintaining/increasing the hardness of asperities in contact, and
second, reduce the true contact area when LN2 is gasified between sliding surfaces.
However, when sliding speed or applied load increases, the rate of heat generated is
increased, but the rate of heat dissipated to the surrounding is unchanged. Moreover,
when sliding distance (time) increases, the accumulated heat in the sliding surface
becomes more and this softens the material. Therefore, LN2 jet cooling is less efficient in
the region with high load, high speed and long sliding distance. To avoid high wear rate,
combination of any two factors at high level should be avoided, especially high sliding
speed with high sliding time. As mentioned earlier, when LN2 entered the interface
between the sliding surfaces, it reduces/neutralises the heat generated in sliding surface,
and as a result, local rate of heat generation due to plastic flow is less than the rate of heat
dissipation to the surrounding materials, and it prevents the formation of adiabatic shear
band and delaminative wear. Besides, LN2 with low temperature harden the surface of the
titanium alloys (Hong and Zhao, 1999). When tungsten carbide slides on titanium alloys,
micro cutting by the carbide particle on the titanium alloys is the main wear mode. The
480 T.C. Yap et al.

debris collected from the cryogenic test is mainly in the form of cutting chips. Other than
the main wear mechanisms (abrasive wear), adhesive and mild oxidative wear are also
detected in few sliding tests under cryogenic LN2 cooling.

4 Conclusions

1 Wear rate of Ti-5Al-4V-0.6Mo-0.4Fe under cryogenic sliding is consistently lower

than wear rate under dry sliding. Analysis of wear debris implies that wear
mechanisms are strongly dependent on operating conditions, i.e., speed, load,
duration and environment.
2 Under dry sliding, the major wear mechanisms are delaminative, adhesive, abrasive
and oxidative wear. Oxidative wear is more obvious at lower sliding speed while
delaminative and adhesive wear dominated the higher sliding speed.
3 Flake-like wear debris collected from dry sliding tests is produced from titanium
alloy. This supports the delaminative wear domination during the dry sliding process.
The flake-like debris is derived from coalescent of voids in adiabatic shear band
when subjected to strain.
4 In cryogenic condition, LN2 reduces the interface temperature, maintains the
material’s hardness and prevents the formation of adiabatic shear band and the main
wear mechanism is abrasive wear. Wear debris collected from cryogenic sliding tests
is in the form of cutting chip-like debris, and this confirms the occurrence of abrasive
wear. Flake-like wear debris, on the other hand, is not present in the debris collected
from the cryogenic test.

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