Friction hardening is one of the surface hardening methods with the use of highly concentrated energy sources. In the “tool-treated surface” contact area, the surface layer of a metal is heated at a very high rate to phase transition temperatures, and then it is cooled at a high rate, which results in the formation of hardened nanocrystalline layers. The studies carried out have shown that a hardened nanocrystalline layer is formed in the surface layer in the course of friction hardening of cast-iron (EN-GJL-200) components. The layer thickness is 90–120 μm, and the microhardness is 7–8 GPa. Grain size of the hardened surface layer was equal to 20–40 nm near the treated surface. It is shown that the hardened layer significantly increases the serviceability of the pair “grey cast iron-grey cast iron” during sliding friction in the lubricated-abrasive medium. When increasing the unit load from 2 to 6 MPa, the wear rate of the hardened pair decreased by 2.6–4.2 times in comparison with an unhardened pair. Only one component of the friction pair was hardened.
