The effect of oxygen pressure on the fretting wear of titanium alloys

A systematic experimental investigation was conducted to study the effect of oxygen environment of different pressure on the fretting wear behavior of Ti6Al4V titanium alloy. In order to well probe the real tribo-chemical state, in this work, an in-situ X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis test developed by a self-designed high precision fretting wear tester integrated with an XPS equipment was used. The tribo-oxidation formed at the different oxygen pressure and its effect on the fretting wear mechanism and the resulting fretting wear volume in the different fretting run regime were discussed. Results show that the oxygen environment of different pressure has significant influence on the wear resistance of titanium alloy depending on the fretting run regime. In the partial slip regime (PSR), different oxygen pressure plays a little influence on fretting wear behavior, while a significant influence for the mixed fretting regime (MFR) and slip regime (SR). The tribo-oxidations produced at the oxygen environment of different pressure for the different fretting run regimes are found to correlate well with the resulting fretting wear mechanism and the fretting wear resistance.