Abstract—Dry sliding wear behaviour is fundamentally regarded as an important way of detecting and analyzing the wear characteristics mainly in typical components in the manufacturing industry which has been found to correlate with both safety and cost effective. Thus, wear behaviours were carried out using ball-on-disc tribometer equipment called CETRUMT-2 which operates with linear reciprocating motion. Ball-on-disc test is regarded as one of the most common tests used to study and analyze the wear behaviour. Evaluating the wear volume, and the wear rate of respective samples, ball-on- disc tests were performed on the Universal Micro materials Tester (UMT-2), produced by Centre for Tribology, Inc. (CETR), USA. The wear tests were performed using a tungsten carbide ball of about 10 mm diameter with a constant stroke length of 2 mm together with application normal load of 25 N. The frequency for the reciprocating spindle was maintained at 5 Hz together with speed of 5 mm/s which was also maintained throughout the test. In this paper, the ball-on-disc was used for the investigation of the effects of normal load and hardness of Ti6Al4V-B 4 C composites on wear behaviour under dry and sliding conditions. The depths of the worn out section were analyzed from the surface of the sample. The analyzed depths were used to evaluate both wear volume, and wear rate using Archard’s wear model equation. The sample produced at a laser power of 0.8 KW has the lowest wear volume, and wear rate with 35.2 x 10 -3 mm 3 and 6.42 x 10 -4 mm 3 /Nm respectively, while the sample produced at 2.0 KW experienced the highest wear volume, and wear rate with 93.3 x 10 -3 mm 3 and 26.2 x 10 - 4 mm 3 /Nm respectively. Index Terms—Ball-on-disc, Linearly reciprocating, Sliding wear, Ti6Al4V-B 4 C composites, Wear rate I. INTRODUCTION HIS Paper studies the effects of normal load on wear behaviour by using the ball-on-disc test under dry condition. Wear can simply be defined as the removal of material from solid surfaces by application of mechanical action [1], [2]. However, several factors are effected on the wear mechanisms, for instance: application of normal load, hardness of material, sliding distance with sliding velocity, and coefficient of sliding friction. Also stated [3] that, wear is a major reliability defect of tribology. Wear is unavoidable in a situation whereby parts are in intimate Manuscript received July 01, 2016; revised August 01, 2016. Musibau O. Ogunlana is a Masters Candidate in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park Kingsway Campus, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2006. (E-mail: 201510083@student.uj.ac.za or emmbbyola@gmail.com). Prof Esther T. Akinlabi is a Professor and the Head of Department in the Department of Mechanical Engineering Science, University of Johannesburg, Auckland Park Kingsway Campus, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2006. Phone: +2711-559-2137, (E-mail: etakinlabi@uj.ac.za). contact and relative motion. Thus, ball-on-disc test is a fundamental configuration used for wear and friction testing. The amount of wear can therefore be determined by the wear behaviour using the linear dimensions of the specimens after the test has been carried out [4]-[6]. Furthermore, wear is regarded as the progressive damage and material loss which occurs on the surface of a component as a result of its motion relative to the adjacent working parts. Material behaviour is due to mechanical loading which can be broadly classified as being either ductile or brittle. However, under the peculiar conditions generated by intensely loaded point or line contacts, a material may display very different forms of behaviour from those observed under less hard work or continuous physical effort testing conditions; in particular, because of the intense local compressive stress fields materials which are usually classified as brittle (such as ceramics, B 4 C) can show significant plastic deformation while those that are ductile (such as titanium alloy, Ti6Al4V) can show greatly enhanced strains prior to failure [7]. Therefore, a common starting point in the analysis of wear is often the Archard’s wear equation which asserts that the wear volume, V is directly proportional to the product of the load, P on the contact and the sliding distance, s but inversely proportional to the surface hardness, H of the wearing material. It was stated that, Archard was the pioneer in developing the sliding wear model. Archard’s wear equation postulates that the wear rate, K is defined by the volume worn away per unit sliding distance and the load. The wear depth can be evaluated related to the wear rate, sliding distance and contact pressure [7]-[9]. The cogent reason for using this equation is due to its simplified form with easily defined parameters [10]. On the other hand, Titanium and its alloys are extensively used in aeronautical, marine, and chemical industries due to their intrinsic properties such as high specific strength, good oxidation, and corrosion resistance. Nevertheless, the applications of titanium alloys under severe wear conditions are highly restricted due to their low hardness and poor tribological properties such as abrasive wear resistance, poor fretting behaviour, and high friction coefficient [11]- [13]. These researchers [11] however reported the effects of laser nitriding on Ti6Al4V and found that the wear resistance of the treated samples is enhanced noticeably under both two-body abrasive, and dry sliding wear conditions. The results of laser nitriding after plasma spraying of Ni and Cr on the surface of pure titanium show that both sliding and fretting wear resistance were improved greatly. The experiment of laser surface alloying of pure titanium with N 2 and CO-mixed reactive gases shows that Wear Behaviour Characterization of Ti6Al4V- B 4 C Composites Musibau O. Ogunlana, and Esther T. Akinlabi, Member, IAENG T Proceedings of the World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science 2016 Vol II WCECS 2016, October 19-21, 2016, San Francisco, USA ISBN: 978-988-14048-2-4 ISSN: 2078-0958 (Print); ISSN: 2078-0966 (Online) WCECS 2016