A Study on Wear Behaviour of Electrical Discharge-Coated Magnesium Alloy

Wear behaviour of ZE41A magnesium alloy coated with WC/Cu using electrical discharge coating (EDC) has been investigated in this study. The wear test was conducted with pin-on-disc machine using different conditions such as normal load of 1.5 kg, 2.5 kg, 3.5 kg and sliding speed of 100 rpm, 200 rpm, 300 rpm and sliding time of 3 min, 5 min, 7 min through L9 Taguchi orthogonal array to study the effect of sliding parameters on the wear characteristics. A wear transition map was constructed to describe the different wear conditions such as mild wear, severe wear and ultra severe wear. The main wear mechanisms for each wear regime were identified and classified through wear mechanism map. The worn-out specimens were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM) to identify the various wear mechanisms.