Wear maps of TZP/steel reciprocating sliding couple under dry sliding

The wear mechanisms of HP sintered 3Y-TZP ceramics under different sliding conditions were investigated in this paper. The tribological tests were carried out under dry reciprocating sliding using GCr15 steel ball on 3Y-TZP ceramic disk geometries at ambient temperature. The load varied from 2 N to 100 N and the speed varied from 0.01 m s(-1) to 0.4 m s(-1). Wide ranges of normal loads and sliding speeds were chosen in order to investigate the relationship between the tribological performance of 3Y-TZP ceramics and the testing conditions. Different wear regions were identified as a function of normal load and speed. The wear surfaces and wear debris were carefully examined by scanning electron microscopy. It is suggested that the mild wear and severe wear of 3Y-TZP ceramics are related to plastic deformation with microcracking and surface fracture with abrasion respectively. At very high normal load and sliding speed, negative wear of 3Y-TZP ceramics takes place due to steel transfer which is caused by strong adherence between 3Y-TZP ceramics and GCr15 steel ball. The wear mechanisms of 3Y-TZP ceramics at different sliding conditions are summarized by a wear transition diagram.