The wear and microstructural characterization of copper surface coated with TiC reinforced FeAl intermetallic composite by ESD method

Iron aluminides, as a technological material, are a member of multicomponent alloys, which, besides iron and aluminium. Due to superior anti-corrosion properties at high temperatures, these alloys are used as coating materials in many surface development processes. Copper is widely used in industry because of its commercially desired properties such as high thermal and electric conductivity. However, with a lower tensile strength and poor wear resistance, they cannot be used for special applications where an excellent strength and/or good wear resistance are required. By coating the surface of new, damaged, or worn-out copper based products using the electro spark deposition (ESD) improves the performance properties of the base metal. In this study, 1% TiC reinforced iron aluminide intermetallic composite electrode was used to coat the copper surface in order to increase the hardness and improve the wear rate by forming a hard structure using ESD coating method. It has been observed that surface hardness increased by about 11 times the end of experimental studies. Wear rate of the coated material increased compared to the uncoated material while the uncoated sample exhibits adhesive wear, also the coated sample exhibits both adhesive and abrasive wear.