High-Stress Abrasion and Impact-Abrasion Testing of Wear Resistant Steels

Abstract

Energy can be saved by enhancing the service life of machinery and by designing lighter units. These design changes enable, for example, lower fuel consumption and larger payloads. The implementation of this kind of solutions, however, requires development of better wear resistant materials. In this study, the wear resistance of a structural steel and three grades of wear resistant steel was evaluated with granite abrasive in tests simulating the conditions in heavy machinery in mining and transportation. Two high-stress abrasion and one impact-abrasion wear testing methods were used. In all tests, higher hardness led to decreased mass loss, but in impact-abrasion the hardness dependence was smaller than in the heavy abrasion tests. This may, however, at least partly result from deformation of softer materials over the sample edges, which is not shown as mass loss. Wear surfaces of structural steel samples exhibited the highest degree of plastic deformation due to their lower hardness and higher ductility compared to the wear resistant steels. On the other hand, in harder materials the scratches were more visible, indicating a change in wear mechanism. Both differences and similarities in the behavior and wear mechanisms of the selected steels were observed in the applied conditions.

Keywords

• abrasion
• hardness
• impact
• steel
• wear