Friction and Wear Properties of Reaction Sintered Silicon Carbide Ceramic

Friction and wear properties of the self-made reaction-sintered silicon carbide ceramic (RSSC) under the conditions of the dry and the oil lubrication frictions were studied, using the dense sintered silicon carbide ceramic (SSC) as the counter wear ring through the ring-block friction and wear style. The results showed that under the dry friction condition, the friction and wear of RSSC included three stages of running-in, stable wear and severe wear. The wear mechanism of RSSC was a mixture mode of abrasive wear and oxidative wear with bigger friction factor and wear volume. Under the oil lubrication condition, the friction and wear of RSSC only included two stages of running-in and stable wear with smaller friction factor and wear volume. As the loading increased, the wear volume and the friction factor of RSSC both increased, however, they increased as a higher rate for the RSSC friction block under the dry condition.