Dry sliding wear behavior of AZ31 magnesium alloy irradiated by high-intensity pulsed ions beam

Wear resistance of AZ31 magnesium alloy irradiated by high-intensity pulsed ions beam(HIPIB) at pulse width of 70-80 ns and ion current density of 200 A/cm2 with shot number of 1,5 and 10 was investigated by using ball-on-flat wear test.Surface morphology and microstructure of irradiated samples were characterized by scanning electron microscopy(SEM)and optical microscope(OM),respectively.The results show that the wear resistance of AZ31 magnesium alloy is improved by HIPIB irradiation and increased with increasing shot number.The wear rate of the sample irradiated with 10 shots is reduced about an order of magnitude compared with the original sample.And wear mechanism of the alloy after HIPIB is changed from single abrasive wear to mixed abrasive and oxidative wear.That′s mainly attributed to the significant increase in microhardness resulted from grain refinement on the irradiated surface.