Influence of Load and Temperature on Abrasion of Carbidic Cast Steel and Complex Alloyed Hardfacing

Steel and cement industries frequently experience from the failure of its core components due to high temperature (HT) operation at heavy loads causing high stress abrasive wear. In this work the effect of load and temperature on the abrasive wear behaviour is investigated for two Fe-based materials (a ferritic cast iron with Cr-carbide network and a carbide-rich complex alloyed hardfacing) in order to select materials for plant specific demands. Thereby the role of the carbide content and its distribution is of interest. A modified ASTM G65 setup was used for HT abrasive wear testing. The applied loads were 10, 45 and 80 N, and temperatures were room temperature (RT), 500 and 700°C. During testing coefficient of friction was measured and abrasive was collect­ed to characterise the wear behaviour (low stress/high stress condition).High stress abrasion was found to be the dominant mechanism at higher loads for all temperatures. A nearly linear increase of wear rate with raising normal loads was found for both the materials. Wear rates at RT were found to be similar for the two alloys, however the complex alloy showed increased wear at HT. The cast steel formed protective mechanically mixed layers (MML) by abra­sive embedding at HT. The hardfacing on the other hand showed brittle behaviour, which worsened with temperature. Based on these results it was concluded that very hard carbide-rich hardfacings performed unbeneficial at high stress conditions and MML-forming materials should be preferred for HT operation under these conditions.