TY - JOUR A1 - Wäsche, Rolf A1 - Klaffke, Dieter A1 - Wötting, G. T1 - Tribological behaviour of structural Si-based ceramics in fretting tests at room temperature N2 - The friction and wear behaviour of SiC, Si3N4 and SiC/Si3N4 composite ceramics were investigated with oscillating sliding (gross slip fretting) at room temperature. The influence of counter body material and the humidity of the surrounding air was studied with a ball-on-disc configuration with different ball materials (1000Cr6, Al2O3 SiC and Si3N4). The effect of RH on friction is marginal with exception of SiC (low friction) as counter body material. The wear behaviour, however, is strongly affected by humidity, showing inverse trends for different counter body materials. Consequently, the wear behaviour of a tribo couple can be improved by selecting an adequate mating material. The results reveal the necessity to control RH in tribological tests. For estimation of the performance of tribo couples under varying environmental conditions, a variation of RH is required. In tribo couples with single phase SiC, either as ball or disc, the tribological behaviour of the system is dominated by SiC. The friction behaviour of the composite material is in between the behaviour of the two single phase materials, Si3N4 and SiC, whereas the wear behaviour is very similar to that of single phase Si3N4. KW - Silicon carbide KW - Silicon nitride KW - Particulate composite KW - Fretting KW - Humidity KW - Mating material PY - 2009 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-009-9413-y SN - 1023-8883 SN - 1573-2711 VL - 33 IS - 3 SP - 211 EP - 219 PB - Springer Science Business Media B.V. CY - Dordrecht AN - OPUS4-19000 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -