Effect of heat treatment, building direction, and sliding velocity on wear behavior of selectively laser-melted maraging 18Ni-300 steel against bearing steel

Abstract

The aim of this study is to study the wear performance of maraging 18Ni-300 steel, fabricated via selective laser melting, with respect to the building direction. The wear resistance of the alloy was investigated with various sliding velocities, including high sliding speeds up to 1 m/s. The samples were subjected to ball-on-disk type wear tests using AISI 52100 high-carbon-steel balls as the counterpart material both in the as-built and post heat-treated states. Abrasive wear was revealed to be the dominant wear mechanism at the relatively low sliding speed range of 25–100 mm/s. Under these wear conditions, the wear of the maraging steel induced by selective laser melting was nearly isotropic. Contrastingly, at the relatively high sliding speeds of 500 and 1000 mm/s, the plastic flow of the maraging steel manifested near the worn surface, and the delamination of the hardened area became the predominant wear mechanism. In these cases, the wear resistance of the maraging steel was significantly influenced by the heat treatment and wear loading direction parameters. The anisotropic wear resistance in the high-speed sliding wear scenario was explained by the anisotropic tensile properties of the material. Therefore, special consideration should be given to the relationship between building direction and contact surfaces when using SLM maraging steel for wear environments with high-speed sliding.