Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the applicability of the ball-on-disk method to ceramics, which is considered to be suitable for measurement of a very small amount of wear. The bearing steel ball (SUJ2) was slid on ceramic disks of SiC, Si3N4, Al2O3 and PSZ, and the friction and wear properties were measured. The wear volume was calculated from the dimensions of the wear track on the ball. The friction force and wear volume remained almost constant for the sliding velocity region of 10-20cm/s, at 1kg load and after 8000total rotation. Then, by changing the total rotation number at 17.5cm/s sliding velocity, the wear volume was found to be proportional to the weight loss of the ball, and also to the sliding distance. Those results showed that the coefficient of friction and the specific wear rate calculated from these data are reliable. The specific wear rate of SUJ2 ball was lowest on the PSZ disk, followed by SiC and then Si3N4. The wear on Al2O3 disk was very large. The wear of the ceramic disk itself was estimated from the cross sectional profile of the wear circle. The Si3N4 disk showed highest wear, followed by SiC and then PSZ. The wear of Al2O3 disk was hardly detected.
