Developing a mathematical model to evaluate wear rate of AA7075/SiC<inf>p</inf> powder metallurgy composites

This paper reports the dry sliding wear behaviour of AA7075 aluminium/SiCp composites fabricated by powder metallurgy technique. Five factors, five levels, central composite, rotable design matrix is used to optimize the required number of experiments. The wear test has been conducted in a pin-on-roller wear testing machine, under constant sliding distance of 1 km. An attempt has been made to develop a mathematical model by response surface method (RSM). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) technique is applied to check the validity of the developed model. Student's t-test is utilised to find out the significance of factors. The effects of volume percentage of reinforcement, particle size of reinforcement, applied load, sliding speed and hardness of counter part materials on dry sliding wear behaviour of AA7075 aluminium/SiCp have been analysed in detail. © 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.