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 themicrostructure, mechanical properties and the wear characteristics of medium carbon-high chromium wear resistantsteel. in addition, the dominant wear mechanisms were studied. for this purpose, austenitizing and temperingtemperatures were selected in the ranges of 900- 1000 °c and 300- 500 °c, respectively. mechanical propertieswere 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. theobtained results revealed that the best wear properties were achieved by tempering at 450 °c due to the reduction oftendency to micro-cracking, the decrease in internal stresses, and the improvement of the impact energy. observingthe wear surfaces showed that the wear mechanism for the specimen tempered at 400 °c was a combination ofabrasive, adhesive and fatigue wear. however, abrasive wear was the only active wear mechanism for the specimentempered at 450 °c.