Investigation on Friction and Thermal Expansion Coefficients of Al-Sn Bearing Alloys

The influences of Sn addition of 3%-30% on the friction and thermal expansion properties of Al-Sn bearing alloys were investigated in this paper. The experiments were carried out on a specially designed friction testing machine and a dilatometer. It is shown by the experiments that the friction coefficient and hardness of the alloys decrease with the increasing of Sn content. The friction coefficient decreases dramatically when Sn content is higher than 6%. On the other hand, the friction coefficient is also dependent on the load. The friction coefficient increases as the load rises. The linear CTE is also a function of temperature and Sn contents. CTE increases when the temperature rises but has no obvious differences for the alloy system when the temperature is below 80°C. As the temperature rises, the differences become large among the alloy system. The higher the Sn content, the lower the CTE.