Enhancement of wear resistance of Ti—6Al—4V alloy by picosecond laser surface micro texturing process

Abstract

A pulsed, picosecond Nd:YAG laser with a wavelength of 532 nm is used to texture the surface of grade 5 titanium alloy (Ti—6Al—4V) for minimizing its wear rate. The wear properties of the base samples and laser surface textured samples are analyzed by conducting wear tests under a sliding condition using pin-on-disk equipment. The wear tests are conducted based on the Box—Benhken design, and the interaction of the process parameters is analyzed using response surface methodology. The wear analysis is conducted by varying the load, rotating speed of the disc, and track diameter at room temperature with a sliding distance of 1500 m. The results demonstrate that the laser textured surfaces exhibited a lower coefficient of friction and good anti-wear properties as compared with the non-textured surfaces. A regression model is developed for the wear analysis of titanium alloy using the analysis of variance technique. It is also observed from the analysis that the applied load and sliding distance are the parameters that have the greatest effect on the wear behavior followed by the wear track diameter. The optimum operating conditions have been suggested based on the results obtained from the numerical optimization approach.

Keywords

titanium alloy / surface texturing / Box—Benhken design / wear / coefficient of friction / optimization

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