Fretting Wear of Co-Cr-Mo Alloys at Elevated Temperatures

Co-Cr-Mo alloy is an excellent wear-resistant material which is widely used in many industrial fields. Due to external vibrations, fretting wear often occurs at the interfaces of well-matched connectors and induces surface wear, resulting in an accumulation of wear debris on the contact surfaces. This leads to a damage at the interface and the deterioration of matching contact pairs. Excellent wear and corrosion resistance are essential requirements for ideal industrial materials to resist the increasingly harsh working conditions of Co-Cr-Mo alloy, such as elevated temperatures. In this study, the fretting wear resistance of a Co-Cr-Mo alloy was investigated for different test parameters (temperatures, normal loads and displacements) with friction equipment. The fretting wear degree of the alloy was slight at 25 °C, and the wear mechanism at 25 °C was mainly abrasive wear. The analyses showed that elevated temperatures accelerated oxidative adhesion wear due to the formation of an oxide layer inside the interfaces and led to severe adhesive wear.