Impact-Sliding Tribology Behavior of TC17 Alloy Treated by Laser Shock Peening

Outer particle collision with certain dynamic objects is not a pure impact wear behavior; it is typically accompanied by sliding wear phenomena. This study is aimed at investigating the impact-sliding wear performance of three different TC17 titanium alloys. One was untreated, and the other two were subjected to laser shock peening (LSP) by 5 and 7 J pulse energy, respectively. The wear test was performed on a novel impact-sliding wear testing rig, which can realize multiple impact-sliding motions by changing motion parameters in the x and z directions. Present results showed that wear resistance of both treated samples improved compared with the untreated alloy. Given the increase in wear cycles, increment in wear rate of the untreated sample was constantly higher than those of the treated samples. All results can be attributed to the increase in surface hardness of the material and residual compressive stress, which was also introduced after LSP.