LAUSR

Abstract Nanoparticulates and nanofibres are good candidates to be considered as reinforcements in the design of new multiferroic composites processed by powder metallurgy. As would be expected in any composite material system, the addition of nanoparticles and fibres to the multiferroic composites will influence the wear response of these materials along with other mechanical properties. Also the choice of the processing parameters during the manufacturing of these materials is expected to influence the resulting material properties. The present study reviews the effect of processing parameters such as milling mode, sintering time and temperature on the wear properties of multiferroic composites that can potentially be used in different engineering applications. For this reason, detailed damage analyses due to wear, utilising scratch tests have been carried out on multiferroic composites reinforced with nanoparticles and fibres such as magnetic iron oxide, alumina powder and alumina fibre. Scanning electron microscopy and 3D optical surface scanner were used to assess the damage to the composites.