Wear 271 (2011) 18281832

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Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

Evaluation of the tribological properties of an AlMgSi alloy

processed by severe plastic deformation
E. Ortiz-Cuellar, M.A.L. Hernandez-Rodriguez, E. Garca-Sanchez
Universidad Autnoma de Nuevo Len, Facultad de Ingeniera Mecnica y Elctrica, Mexico

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 2 September 2010
Received in revised form
26 December 2010
Accepted 29 December 2010

Keywords:
ECAP
Severe plastic deformation
Wear, Al6XXX

a b s t r a c t
Aluminum alloys are widely used as structural materials in various types of applications due to light
weight, excellent strength, corrosion resistance, formability. However, problems may arise in those applications that require high wear resistance. With the aim to study the effect of the severe plastic deformation
on the tribological properties in an aluminum alloy; in this work a commercial AlMgSi alloy under two
initial microstructural conditions has been deformed at room temperature by multi-pass 90 equal channel angular pressing (ECAP). After the processing each sample was evaluated by means of microhardness
measurements and the microstructural condition was determinate by electron microscopy.
Subsequently sliding wear test was performed in a ball on disk conguration under lubricated conditions.
It was found a wear resistance increase with the rise in the deformation promoted by number of extrusion passes and the initial microstructural condition. The dominant wear mechanisms were identied
and correlated with mechanical properties, microstructure and the level of deformation.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Nanostructured materials processed by severe plastic deformation (SPD) are porosity free, contamination-free, and sufciently
large for use in real commercial structural applications like:
aerospace, transportation, sport and construction [1,2]. These
materials can exhibit high strength, good ductility, superior superplasticity, and low coefcient of friction; high wear resistance
and improved fatigue life in high cycles [3]. The SPD processes
are excluded from conventional forming operations like: uniaxial
tension, compression, unidirectional extrusion and lamination or
pressing [4].
Numerous studies have shown that some types of SPD cause a
decrease in the grains sizes and also affects particles and precipitates into the material, some SPD methods promotes formation
of a disperse and more homogeneous structure. Indeed, promising
methods for increasing the strength and plasticity by the creation of
submicron and nanocrystalline structures in the material by severe
plastic deformation are; equal-channel angular pressing (ECAP),
accumulative roll bonding (ARB) and shear deformation under high
pressure torsion (HPT) [35].

The strength and hardness of aluminum alloys can increase due

to segregation of ne particles from supersaturated solid solution.
Thus, aluminum alloys could have a structure favorable for wear
resistance; hard second phase particles are distributed in a relative
soft matrix [6,7]. Recent works have shown that a composite structure consisting of hard particles distributed in a relatively plastic
matrix is preferred for the improvements of wear resistance. The
wear process is affected not only by the amount and uniformity
on distribution of particles of the second phase over the volume
but also by the strength of the particle/matrix boundary and the
mechanical proprieties of the matrix [6,8].
There are several mechanisms of wear which include seizure,
melting, oxidation, adhesion, abrasion, delaminating, fatigue, fretting, corrosion, and erosion. Wear can be reduced normally by
using a lubricant with appropriate anti-wear additives, changing
the materials and/or the operating parameters affecting the wear
rate [7].
Due to the technological importance of wear [9] and the lack
of information concerning to these phenomena in materials processed by SPD, the topic of the evaluation of the wear properties on
an aluminum alloy processed by the combination of ECAP and heat
treatments in this work is justied.
2. Experimental procedure

Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 81 14920378x1624; fax: +52 81 10523321.

E-mail addresses: ogarcia@gama.me.uanl.mx, egs7710@gmail.com
(E. Garca-Sanchez).
0043-1648/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wear.2010.12.082

In order to evaluate the effect of the initial microstructure on

the tribological properties, two set of samples in form of bars

E. Ortiz-Cuellar et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 18281832

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Fig. 1. (a) Diagram of the thermal and mechanical procedure, (b) samples cut along longitudinal plane in the internal section for analysis.

(12 mm 12 mm 40 mm) of commercial Al6060 alloy in two different conditions (C1 and C2) was submitted to ECAP followed by
an aging heat treatments (Fig. 1a). The C1 condition corresponds
to T6 aging heat treatment and C2 solution heat treatment, (530 C
by 2 h water quenched) [10,11]. ECAP was performed using a 90
channels intersection die, from 1 to 5 passes at room temperature
and graphite as lubricant using Bc route, which is one of the most
effective route to obtain renement of the microstructure in several materials [35]. The aging heat treatment selected was 170 C
for 60 min and cooling air [12].
After ECAP and aging heat treatment the samples were sectioned
longitudinally (Fig. 1b), Microhardness proles were performed on
the internal plane according to the ASTM E384 using a load of
200 g by 15 s. In order to analyze the initial conditions and rened
microstructure after ECAP process; optical and transmission electron microscopy was undertaken in a JEOL model JEM 1020. For this
purpose the samples were mechanical polished until 0.150.2 mm
in thickness and then electropolished with a 75% methanol, 25%
HNO3 solution and 25 V by 510 min at room temperature.
Sliding wear tests were performed on ball-on-disc tribometer.
The discs were the samples processed by different number ECAP
passes and the pin was a steel ball according to the ASTM G99
standard. The parameters used for tribological test were: speed of
264 RPM, load of 12.5 N, a distance of 500 m and distilled water
as lubricant. Prior to wear test, the samples were polished using
a set of SiC grids until mirror like shape. Gravimetric method was
used to assess the mass lost. Examinations of the wear scars were
undertaken by means of scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

sion passes. The stabilization of the hardness with the increase in

the deformation has been associated with the dislocation saturation after three passes in ECAP and with the level of microstructural
renement possible [13,14].
Fig. 3 presents TEM evidence of the microstructural condition
after four passes in ECAP previous to ball on disc test, the grain
size was estimated near to 200 nm, is possible to observe some
grains with high density of deformation accumulated, also is exhibited the tendency to form equiaxed microstructure, in this gure
there is not clear evidence of second phase particles, however is
expected a homogenous distribution of these, due to the solution
heat treatment and the aging post-ECAP [12,21].
Sliding wear resistance in samples processed by ECAP is
observed in Fig. 4. The condition C2 presented an improvement
in wear resistance compared with C1, it could be associated with
the hardness values reported, which in the condition C1 for all
the deformation levels remains below of C2. For both conditions
the increase of the deformation level, promote an improvement

3. Results and discussions

Fig. 2 presents microhardness proles in C1 and C2 conditions,
is observed that C1, without solution heat treatment has a high
increment in the microhardness level after the rst ECAP pass, and
slightly tendency to decrease in subsequent passes. In C2 condition
is observed an increase in the microhardness superior than C1, and
these values in C2 are maintained in subsequent number of extru-

Fig. 2. Microhardness proles in samples processed by ECAP.

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Fig. 3. Microstructure: Al6060 alloy, (a) condition T6 aging heat treatment (grain size 47 m), (b) solution heat treatment (grain size 60 m), (c) after four passes in ECAP
for C2 condition (grain size 0.2 m), TEM.

in the wear resistance, related with the combined effect of the

microstructural renement and the second phase particles distribution [12,1520]. Fig. 5 shows the friction coefcient for C1, C2 and
a sample without ECAP as reference, it is observed that the values
in the two conditions are smaller than obtained in Al6060 without
processing by ECAP, it was attributed to high adhesion achieved
between aluminum lms on the steel ball and the sample disc. Also
was noted that values of friction coefcient for C2 are smaller and
homogenous than C1. This behavior of friction between C1 and C2
coefcients depends mainly of the distribution and concentration
of second phase particles in the microstructure [21]. The processing
by ECAP and heat treatments makes a positive effect in tribological
properties (sliding wear and friction coefcient) due to increase in
the grain boundaries density associated with signicant grain size
reduction and the re-distribution of second phase particles during
heat treatments [22]. It is important to note that after the 4th pass
the wear response was alike for both conditions. It can be attributed

Fig. 5. Friction coefcients for ECAP from 1 to 5 passes, (a) C1 and reference, (b) C2
condition.
Fig. 4. Lose weights in sliding wear for samples deformed in different number of
passes by ECAP.

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1831

Fig. 6. (a, b) Sliding wear in Al6060 alloy condition T6 aging heat treatment, (c, d) sliding wear in Al6060 processed by ECAP one passes in condition C1, (e, f) Al6060 processed
by ECAP one passes in condition C2, (g, h) ECAP ve passes in condition C1, (i, j) ECAP ve passes in condition C2.

to the similar grain renement achieved as a result of cumulative

deformation.
Representative SEM images of wear surface for all conditions are presented in Fig. 6; the wear surfaces of the reference

Al6060 showed adhesion mechanism on some zones and fatigue

mechanism by delamination due to the interaction between the
ball and the material surface. It can be observed in agreement
with the scale (see arrows Fig. 6a, e, i) that the width of the

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E. Ortiz-Cuellar et al. / Wear 271 (2011) 18281832

track decrease as increased the number of extrusion passes. The

fatigue wear mechanism by delamination was present for all
conditions (Fig. 6). However it was possible to observe that in
ne microstructures the high density of grain boundaries promoted less surface damage leading smaller laminated debris, minor
width wear track and less wear. The de-bonding of big second
phase particles is observed in the reference sample (Fig. 6b);
this can be explained by the fracture and detachment of big second phase particles. This phenomenon was minor on the samples
after the ECAP processing where the second phase particles were
re-distributed.
4. Conclusions
Room temperature equal channel angular pressing can produce
materials with an improved wear resistance that depends mainly
of the level of strain produced in each extrusion pass. From one to
four passes, the previous solution heat treatment had an important effect in mechanical and tribological properties due to the
redistributions of second phase particles achieved during the aged
treatment. After ve passes the tribological behavior was similar
for condition C1 and C2 but its wear resistance increased near to
100% regarding to sample reference.
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