Wear resistance and selection of steels, hardmetals and hardfacings for abrasive wear conditions

Abstract

Hardness and toughness have a major effect on wear resistance. The material wear rate depends directly on hardness (at sliding wear), as well as on material toughness (at impact wear). The main goal of the present work was to study the abrasive wear behaviour of different wear resistant steels, hardmetals/cermets and hardfacings. The following steels were under the study: a) hardenable boron and non–alloy steel C 45 subjected to different heat treatments; b) hardened steels Hardox 400…600. WC–Co hardmetals and TiC–NiMo cermets and composite metal–matrix coatings were studied. The abrasive wear tests were performed using two methods: a) abrasive rubber–wheel wear; b) abrasive impact wear. The dependence of wear resistance on hardness and toughness of steels is clarified, the wear maps are composed. In combined abrasive/impact wear conditions, composite materials/coatings with multimodal reinforcements show promising results in increasing of abrasive wear resistance of rapidly wearing wear parts.