Abstract
An investigation was carried out to understand the effect of the amount of free silicon on the tribological properties of Si-SiC. The specimens of dense Si-SiC composites with various amount of free silicon were fabricated in the temperature of 175$0^{\circ}C$ after molding under various pressure. Wear properties were measured by ball-on-plate wear tester under the constant weight of 4 Kgf at constant sliding speed of 500 mm/sec in water. As the result, the Rockwell hardness and fracture strength of Si-SiC composites remained nearly constant up to 16.62 vol% of free silicon in the Si-SiC microstructure. The Si-SiC composites containing the free silicon of 16.62 vol% was considered to be prominent in the tribological properties, which had the friction coefficient of 0.08 and the specific wear rate of 2.4$\times$10-8$\textrm{mm}^2$Kgf-1. The analysis of the wear surface indicated the complicated processes occuring on the surface such as fine polishing, abrasion, microfracture.