Investigation of Dry Sliding Wear Behavior of Ni–SiC Microwave Cladding

In the present work, a wear-resistant composite cladding of Ni-based+10% SiC was developed on martensitic stainless steel (SS-420) through a recently developed process microwave hybrid heating (MHH) technique. In the current investigation, domestic microwave oven of frequency 2.45 GHz and 900 W power was used for the development of clads. The metallurgical and mechanical characterizations of developed clads were carried through scanning electron microscope (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), and Vicker's microhardness. The developed clad is uniformly developed and it is metallurgically bonded with the substrate. The average Vicker's microhardness of the clad was 652 ± 90 HV. The tribological behavior of cladding has been investigated through pin-on-disk sliding method against an EN-31 (HRC-62). The clad surface showed good resistance to the sliding wear. It is observed that in case of the clad samples, wear occurs due to dislocation of particles, smearing off of tribofilm, and craters due to pullout of carbides from the matrix.