investigation of wear mechanism in quenched and tempered medium carbon-high chromium martensitic steel using dry sand/rubber wheel

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of quenching and tempering temperatures on the microstructure, mechanical properties and the wear characteristics of medium carbon-high chromium wear resistant steel. in addition, the dominant wear mechanisms were studied. for this purpose, austenitizing and tempering temperatures were selected in the ranges of 900- 1000 °c and 300- 500 °c, respectively. mechanical properties were evaluated through hardness and impact tests as well as wear test (by dry sand/rubber wheel apparatus). microstructure and wear and fracture surface appearances were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (sem). moreover, the measurement of retained austenite was done through x-ray diffraction (xrd) analysis. the obtained results revealed that the best wear properties were achieved by tempering at 450 °c due to the reduction of tendency to micro-cracking, the decrease in internal stresses, and the improvement of the impact energy. observing the wear surfaces showed that the wear mechanism for the specimen tempered at 400 °c was a combination of abrasive, adhesive and fatigue wear. however, abrasive wear was the only active wear mechanism for the specimen tempered at 450 °c.