Wear resistant frictionally contacting surfaces

Abstract

Abstract An improved mechanical system comprising a first part presenting a first metallic surface, a second part presenting a metallic surface of the same or a different metal and capable of being in sliding contact with the first surface, and means for inducing and maintaining the two surfaces in sliding contact with each other, for example, in liquid pumps of the gear type wherein there is sliding and rolling between the teeth of adjacent meshing and unmeshing gears, the improvement consisting of employing as each surface a metallic surface comprising an alloy containing at least 60 atom percent of at least two heavy metal transition elements, the ratio of the atomic radii of the largest to the smallest transition elements being 1.05-1.68, and consisting of 10-100 volume percent of a hard phase and 0-90 volume percent of a matrix phase which is softer than the hard phase, said hard phase containing a major fraction of Laves phase in such amount as to provide at least 10 volume percent thereof in the alloy.

Inventors

• 👤 C Farley

Bibliographic Details