The Influence of the Sintering Atmospheres on the Wear Behaviour of the Copper Based Alloys

Abstract

The Powder Metallurgy (PM) technique allows manufacturing the sintered selflubricating materials having a high wear resistance. It is well known that the small and medium sized bearings are processed by PM with better characteristics than those obtained by casting technology. The tested materials are Cu-based ones having Sn, Zn and Pb as alloying elements in order to improve the tribological properties. These alloys are designed to be used for manufacturing self-lubricating bearings. The alloy compositions have been obtained by PM route, by cold die compacting, using different pressures. The sintering atmosphere was vacuum. The DSC is a thermo-analytical method, which allows, by measuring the temperature difference between the sample and a reference, a quantitative measurement of the heat flow difference when the sample and the reference are submitted to the same temperature program. The wear test was performed for four ring samples with a ball pin and the test atmosphere was vacuum and normal air