Abstract
Wear and wear transition mechanisms during sliding as a function of time in Al2O3 have been studied to understand the wear behaviour of brittle ceramic materials. Commercial Si3N4 ball was rotated against flat Al2O3 specimens which were hot pressed and polished using upto 1${\mu}{\textrm}{m}$ diamond paste. Paraffin oil was used as a lubricant. Experimental data show that wear of Al2O3 is separated into distinct two stages, i.e., initial stage of slow wear and final stage of rapid wear. Microstructural observations at worn surface show that wear occurs through grooving and grain pull-out in the initial and final stage respectively. TEM observations beneath the worn surfaces show that grain pull-out starts to occur by the propagation of grain boundary cracks induced by dislocation pile-up throughthe surface.
