Improvement of the Adhesive Wear Resistance and Mechanical Properties of Low-Carbon Steel by Solid Carbonization
Wear is one of the problems that occurs in moving parts, whether rolling or sliding. Since the wear resistance is closely linked to the hardness of the involved surfaces, this research studies the possibility of increasing the hardness of low carbon steel, which is used extensively because its ductility and its shock resistance and being one of the inexpensive metals. A lot of mechanical parts require an external hard surface, resistant to wear, and at the same time high resistance to shocks. The main hardening process used in this research is the increase of the carbon proportion on the external surfaces of the equipment made of low carbon steel and thus, to make the heat treatments necessary to obtain the required properties of these surfaces such as hardness and high resistance to shocks. The study of the process of carbonization by using the solid carbonization as one of the ways of hardening the surface at temperatures in the austenite range of low carbon steels give an impression about the possibility of improvement in the qualities of hardness and resistance to wear. In order to obtain a variable thickness of the carbonated layer, a carbonization process was performed at different temperatures and times to demonstrate the effect of these two important factors to the amount of diffused carbon to the surface of the solid and thus the extent of its influence to obtain the required properties of the process. The mechanical and microscopic tests conducted on samples proved the success of the carbonization process to achieve the purpose and goal of the preparation of this paper. Finally experimental results have shown good correlation between the wear resistance and mechanical properties with temperature and carbonization time. The analysis of the variance of the results in this study indicated that the best mechanical properties are achieved when one performs the process of carbonization at 975°C for 20 hours.