Investigation of abrasive + erosive wear behaviour of surface hardening methods applied to AISI 1050 steel

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Abstract

In the present technology, machine parts which work at the industry area such as agriculture, mining and cement are subjected to wear. The wear resistance of these parts is improved by conventional heat treatments or surface heat treatments, which only improved the property surface and sub-surface of materials.

In this study, samples of AISI 1050 steel are subjected to induction hardening and thermochemical treatments such as boronising, nitriding and thermal spraying which involves flame spraying, flame spraying plus melting, high velocity oxyfuel (HVOF) plus melting apart from the conventional heat treatment, which is oil quenching.

At the end of wear tests, it is observed that the amount of wear in base metal decreased with the oil quenching but on the contrary to that the wear resistance was not improved with induction hardening and the other thermochemical surface treatments.

However, the amount of wear in base metal was significantly decreased with thermal spraying methods. Even the additionally applied remelting treatment after spraying reduced to more smaller amounts. So, the applied remelting treatment after spraying plays much more important role in reducing wear. At wear surfaces of thermal spraying samples, the regional surface damages with slight traces of abrasive wear are seen.

Introduction

Friction and wear behaviour of materials largely depend upon surface material, mechanical properties, physical structure and chemical composition of surfaces and surface topographies. Thermo-chemical and thermo-mechanical processes are heavily used for increasing the abrasive wear resistance of materials [1], [2], [3]. When comparing these two groups of methods, particularly in thermo-mechanical processes, the coating material selected as well as the process parameters must be considered as an important factor. Therefore, when comparing these two methods, the main criteria shall be the chemical composition of the surface layer and the surface adhesion of this layer. These two main criteria usually determine the wear conditions in which these methods can be preferred. For example, impact load and heavy load conditions restrict the use of thermo-mechanical processes. Although many methods may be selected in thermo-chemical surface treatments, we see that in this group plasma nitriding method is used extensively and gives very good results [4], [5], [6]. In these applications, the best process parameters must be determined in advance [6].

Coating material is naturally the most important parameter in thermo-mechanical processes, which are used to improve the abrasive wear properties of the surface [7], [8], [9], [10]. Both ceramic [7], [10] and metal ceramic composites can be used as coating materials [8], [9]. These coatings are usually powder blends made of different materials and the component ratios in this blend are highly important [7], [8], [9], [10]. For example, in a research by Niemi et al. [7], wear resistance of ceramic coatings such as Al2O3, Al2O3 + 3% TiO2, Al2O3 + 40% TiO2, TiO2 and Al2O3 + 40% ZrO2 was produced using methods of atmospheric plasma spraying and detenation gun spraying over a low carbon steel material has been tested by dry sand rubber wheel test and particle erosion test and it was found that wear resistance of coatings made by both methods improved by adding a small amount (3%) of TiO2 and reduced by adding 40% TiO2.

Success of thermo-mechanical methods against abrasive resistance depends on method parameters and, if powder material has been used, on powder properties. In a research by Vuoristo et al. [11], WC and Cr3C2 powders were used to test the abrasive wear resistance of coatings made by detenation gun spraying and it was found that coatings made by powder containing small carbide size had the highest wear resistance when a proper gas composition was used. Also, a study by Dallaire, Legoux and Levert [8] investigated the abrasive wear resistance of AISI 304 stainless steel coatings and stainless steel coatings containing TiB2 particles using electric arc spraying method, where argon or air was used as atomised gas and wear resistance of coatings was found to be 2–4 times more than stainless steel matrix depending on the quantity, size and hardness of sprayed particles.

In the published literature, there are limited data dealing with the abrasive plus erosive wear characteristics of powder sprayed coatings and thermo-chemical treatments. This study presents the results of abrasive plus erosive wear test carried out on powder sprayed coatings and thermo-chemical treatments.

Section snippets

Experimental procedures

The material used in the experiments is AISI 1050 and its chemical composition is given in Table 1. The wear area of test samples is the part with 7 mm diameter and 30 mm length.

Test materials were subjected to improvement treatment as well as surface treatments such as induction hardening, plasma nitriding, boronising, and thermal spraying. During application of surface treatment, method types and process parameters were taken as variables. Treatments applied to test material and process

Results and discussion

Weight losses which are the total wear at the 10th h for the each test samples divided by the unit surface area, expressed in mg/mm2, are given in Fig. 3. As can be seen in Fig. 3, oil quenched (OQ) samples and samples coated with thermal spraying (FS1, FS2, FSM, HVOFM) have worn less than the base metal. Particularly, those samples that have been subjected to HVOF plus melting (HVOFM) have worn much less than the base metal. On the contrary, samples subjected to thermo-chemical surface

Conclusions

  • a.

    When ceramic-like, hard and brittle layers form on the surface of a material which has been exposed to abrasive wear by abrasive particles, impact of these particles leads to microcrack mechanism, with a consequent increase in the rate of wear. This is observed in samples applied thermo-chemical processes such as nitriding and boronising, which cause formation of hard and brittle layers on the surface.

  • b.

    Wear resistance may be increased when the coating layers are made of composite-based materials

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