2. Wear Behavior of Composites and Nanocomposites: A New Approach

Tribology is a relatively new area and is defined as the science and technology of the interacting surfaces when they are in relative motion with respect to each other. Among various tribological processes wear is an important area of research. It is defined as the removal of material from either one surface or both the surface when they are in sliding, rolling or in impact contact respectively. There are several types of wear such as adhesive, abrasive, corrosive and fatigue respectively which takes place between the two interacting surfaces. Composite is a combination of two or more compounds thus leading to a development of new material which shows improved properties as compared to the base material. Nanocomposite has the size of each phase in the range of 1–1000 nm, frequently it lies between 1–100 nm. There are several types of nanocomposites such as Polymer Matrix Nanocomposites (PMNCs), Metal Matrix Nanocomposites (MMNCs) and Ceramic Matrix Nanocomposites (CMNCs) etc. Among all, MMNCs has gained much importance because it shows high values of mechanical parameters as compared to PMNCs and CMNCs respectively. MMNCs consist of metal as matrix and ceramic as reinforcement. A lot of researcher have studied the wear behavior of various metals, ceramics and polymers however no systematic attempt has been made to study the wear behavior of composite and nanocomposites especially MMNCs. The present chapter focuses on the wear, its mechanism, types of wear and analysis of wear debris. Apart from this a discussion is also done on the composites, nanocomposites, types of nanocomposites. Wear behavior of metals, ceramics and polymers is also described along with a special focus on iron-alumina metal matrix nanocomposites and a mechanism to reduce the overall wear rate in any system.