A Comparison of the Abrasive Wear Behaviors of Cast Iron and Cast Steel Materials

Abstract

The two body abrasive wear of cast iron and cast steel was studied by scratching tests. The tests were carried out by installing a scratching apparatus on the spindle of a CNC machine tool. Cemented carbide inserts were used as tools to scratch the test samples. The abrasive wear behaviors of cast iron and cast steel were investigated by comparing their scratch morphologies and the subsurface microstructures. For cast iron, the crushing of the graphite ribbon and inconsistent deformation at the boundaries of pearlite and graphite are important reasons for the exfoliation of the surface hardening layer and the initiation of surface cracks. The cast steel can undergo sufficient plastic deformation; only when the scratch depth and scratch speed increase to a certain value do cracks occur on the side pile-ups of the groove. Both microploughing and microcutting wear mechanisms exist at the same time, but the dominant wear mechanism changes between the two under different scratch conditions. The pile-up ratio can be used to measure the strength of the microcutting and microploughing actions of cast steel; this parameter increases with increasing scratch depth and decreases with increasing scratch speed and extrusion front rake angle.