Influence of Combined Mechanical Processes on Tribological Properties of Tool Steels Vanadis 8 and Vancron 40 With a Similar Hardness

Surface integrity is important factor for components exposed to wear, like cold working tools, which need to possess high hardness combined with high wear resistance. Surface treatments such as grinding, hard turning, and hard turning with slide burnishing have been developed for its improvement. Vancron 40 and Vanadis 8 tool steels, of different chemical composition and different types and amounts of carbides, were now investigated. Heat treatment was carried out in vacuum furnaces with gas quenching to hardness of Vancron 64 ± 1 HRC and of Vanadis 65 ± 1 HRC. 3D topography, optical and scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction and ball-on-disc tribological tests against Al2O3 and 100Cr6 balls as counterparts were used to examine wear and friction. For both steels, the lowest values of dynamic frictions and wear rates against Al2O3 counterbodies were achieved after sequential process of hard turning with slide burnishing with a burnishing force of 180 N. For alumina balls, the increase of wear resistance, achieved after hard turning plus burnishing in comparison to grinding exceeds 50 and 60%, respectively for Vanadis 8 and Vancron 40 steels.

Modelling the Influence of Slide Burnishing Parameters on the Surface Roughness of Shafts Made of 42CrMo4 Heat-Treatable Steel

This article presents the results of tests aimed at determining the effect of slide burnishing parameters on the surface roughness of shafts made of 42CrMo4 heat-treatable steel. The burnishing process was carried out using tools with polycrystalline diamond and cemented carbide tips. Before burnishing, the samples were turned on a turning lathe to produce samples with an average surface roughness Ra = 2.6 µm. The investigations were carried out according to three-leveled Hartley’s poly selective quasi D (PS/DS-P: Ha3) plan, which enables a regression equation in the form of a second-order polynomial to be defined. Artificial neural network models were also used to predict the roughness of the surface of the shafts after slide burnishing. The input parameters of the process that were taken into account included the values of pressure, burnishing speed and feed rate. Overall, the burnishing process examined leads to a reduction in the value of the surface roughness described by the Ra parameter. The artificial neural networks with the best regression statistics predicted an average surface roughness of the shafts with R2 = 0.987. The lowest root-mean-square error and mean absolute error were obtained with all the network structures analysed that were trained with the quasi Newton algorithm.

Influence of slide burnishing process on the surface characteristics of precipitation hardenable steel

The surface integrity of the material is the predominant necessity of a component to perform efficiently in varying working conditions. To improve the surface integrity of the workpiece secondary finishing processes are being performed. This work attempts to propose a realistic cryogenic slide burnishing condition for improvement of the surface integrity. The slide burnishing was performed by a novel slide burnishing tool on 17–4 precipitation hardenable stainless steel. The experiment was designed based on a central composite design. Initially, the effect of control parameters on the output response was examined by experimental analysis based on the design of experiment. Analysis of variance was used to analyze the influence of the variables on the performance indices. The regression technique was used to develop an empirical model. Optimization of process parameters for finding minimum surface roughness and maximum surface hardness was achieved by a multi-objective genetic algorithm. The optimized solutions were validated by performing confirmation experiments.

Nano-Crystallization of Steel Surface by Slide-Burnishing

Slide-burnishing is one of the most powerful processes for microstructural evolution. Here slide-burnishing was performed by a cemented carbide ball loaded and fed on the flat surface of a rotating disk specimen of carbon steel using a lathe machine. This process provides many advantages: burnishing reduces the surface roughness, increases the surface hardness due to grain refinement, improves the wear resistance, and requires no special equipment. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) observation revealed that nano-crystalline structures in the 10–300 nm grain size range were formed at the burnished sub-surface layer and that grain size increased approximately linearly with depth below the surface due to the strain gradient. High rotation speed in the burnishing process prompted further grain refinement, as evidenced by ultrafine and equiaxed grains in the 10 nm size range at the top surface layer of the specimen burnished at the highest rotational speed. Burnishing increased the indentation hardness of the nano-crystalline layer by a factor of 3.5. The expected linear relationship between hardness and inverse square root of grain size was identified.