Comparative Study of Induction Quenching and Laser Surface Texturing on Anti-wear Performance of 40Cr Steel

Abstract

Wear is the main cause of the eventual failure for machinery products composed of 40Cr steel during severe working environment. Induction quenching (IQ) is extensively used to improve the anti-wear performance of 40Cr steel. Nevertheless, the IQ technique has significant drawbacks related to easy deformation and more power consumption. To enhance the performance of 40Cr steel during wear, the laser processing technique was implemented to manufacture various surface texturing shapes (gridding and striation patterns). First, the distinct microstructure, phase components, and microhardness of surface texturing sample were observed and compared with those of IQ and untreated samples. Then, the anti-wear performance of 40Cr steel was experimentally evaluated. The results indicate that surface texturing is beneficial in improving the anti-wear performance of 40Cr steel. The anti-wear performance of surface texturing specimen with gridding pattern was the best, resulting in significant improvement of 73.83% than the untreated sample; the surface texturing sample with striation pattern had the second-best anti-wear performance, improvement of 70.22%, and the IQ sample had the third-best anti-wear performance, improvement of 62.47%.