The present work was primarily conducted to study the wear behavior of as-received and severely deformed Al-15%Mg₂Si in situ composites. The severe plastic deformation was applied using accumulative back extrusion (ABE) technique (one and three passes). The continuous dynamic recrystallization (CDRX) was recognized as the main strain accommodation and grain refinement mechanism within aluminum matrix during ABE cycles. To investigate the wear properties of the processed material, the dry sliding wear tests were carried out on both the as-received and processed samples under normal load of 10 and 20 N at room temperature, 100 °C, and 200 °C. The results indicated a better wear resistance of processed specimens in comparison to the as-received ones at room temperature. In addition, the wear performance was improved as the ABE pass numbers increased. These were related to the presence of oxide tribolayer. At 100 °C, the as-received material exhibited a better wear performance compared to the processed material; this was attributed to the formation of a work-hardened layer on the worn surface. At 200 °C, both the as-received and processed composites experienced a severe wear condition. In general, elevating the temperature changed the dominant wear mechanism from oxidation and delamination at room temperature to severe adhesion and plastic deformation at 200 °C.

The present work deals with the high temperature flow behavior and the microstructure of the Al-Cu/Mg₂Si metal matrix composite. Toward this end, a set of hot compression tests was performed in a wide range of temperature (573–773 K) and strain rate (0.001–0.1 s⁻¹). The results indicated that the temperature and strain rate have a significant effect on the flow softening and hardening behavior of the material. The work hardening rate may be offset due to the occurrence of the restoration processes, the dynamic coarsening, and spheroidization of the second phase particles. In this regard, two phenomenological constitutive models, Johnson–Cook (JC) and Arrhenius-type equations, were employed to describe the high temperature deformation behavior of the composite. The JC equation diverged from experimental curves mainly in conditions which are far from its reference temperature and reference strain rate. This was justified considering the fact that JC model considers thermal softening, strain rate hardening, and strain hardening as three independent phenomena. In contrast, the Arrhenius-type model was more accurate in modeling of the flow behavior in wide range of temperature and strain rate. The minor deviation at some specified conditions was attributed to the negative strain rate sensitivity of the alloys at low temperature deformation regime.