Sliding Wear Performance Evaluation of Red Mud (RM), RM + Fly Ash (FA) and RM + FA + Al Coatings on Mild Steel

Abstract

The research paper focuses on evaluating the dry sliding wear behaviour of plasma sprayed coatings like red mud (RM), RM + 5% Fly Ash (FA) and RM + 5% FA + 5% Al on mild steel cylindrical shape substrate. Spraying was done at 10 kW operating power level. A conventional pin on disc wear tester is adopted for wear analysis. The wear test was performed at track diameter of 50 mm and sliding speed of 60 rpm (0.157 m/s) with normal load of 10 N. The duration of sliding varies from 54 minutes for pure red mud coating to a maximum value of 102 minutes for RM + 5% FA + 5% Al composite coating. A significant decrease in wear rate (in terms of mass loss) is observed by reinforcement of fly ash and aluminium to red mud, which might be due to improved interfacial properties.