Investigation of austenitizing temperature on wear behavior of austempered gray iron (AGI)

Abstract

This study is about finding the effect of austenitizing temperature on microstructure and wear behavior of copper alloyed austempered gray iron (AGI), and then comparing it with an as- cast (solidified) state. Tensile and wear tests specimens are prepared from as-cast gray iron material, and austenitized at different temperatures and then austempered at a fixed austempering temperature. Resulting microstructures are characterized through optical microscopy, scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-Ray diffraction. Wear test is carried out using a block-on-roller multi-tribotester with sliding speed of 1.86 m/sec. In this investigation, wear behavior of all these austempered materials are determined and co-related with the micro structure. Hence the wear surface under scanning electron microscope showed that wear occurred mainly due to adhesion and delamination under dry sliding condition. The test results indicate that the austenitizing temperature has remarkable effect on resultant micro structure and wear behavior of austempered materials. Wear behavior is also found to be dependent on the hardness, tensile strength, austenite content and carbon content in austenite. It is shown that coarse ausferrite micro structure exhibited higher wear depth than fine ausferrite microstructure.