Abrasive Wear Behavior of Cryogenically Treated Boron Steel (30MnCrB4) Used for Rotavator Blades

Tejinder Pal Singh; Anil Kumar Singla; Jagtar Singh; Kulwant Singh; Munish Kumar Gupta; Hansong Ji; Qinghua Song; Zhanqiang Liu; Catalin I Pruncu

doi:10.3390/ma13020436

Abrasive Wear Behavior of Cryogenically Treated Boron Steel (30MnCrB4) Used for Rotavator Blades

Materials (Basel). 2020 Jan 16;13(2):436. doi: 10.3390/ma13020436.

Authors

Tejinder Pal Singh¹, Anil Kumar Singla¹, Jagtar Singh¹, Kulwant Singh¹, Munish Kumar Gupta², Hansong Ji², Qinghua Song^{2

3}, Zhanqiang Liu^{2

3}, Catalin I Pruncu^{4

5}

Affiliations

¹ Mechanical Engineering Department, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Punjab 148106, India.
² Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture, Ministry of Education, School of Mechanical Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China.
³ National Demonstration Center for Experimental Mechanical Engineering Education, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China.
⁴ Mechanical Engineering Department, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK.
⁵ Mechanical Engineering, Imperial College London, Exhibition Rd., London SW7 2AZ, UK.

Abstract

Rotavator blades are prone to significant wear because of the abrasive nature of sand particles. The aim of this research work is to investigate the effect of cryogenic treatment and post tempering on abrasive wear behavior, in the presence of angular quartz sand (grain size of 212-425 μm), of rotavator blade material of boron steel (30MnCrB4). Cryogenic treatment has caused an improvement in the abrasive wear resistance and microhardness of 30MnCrB4 by 60% and 260.73%, respectively, compared to untreated material due to enhancement in hardness, the conversion of retained austenite into martensite, and the precipitation of secondary carbides in boron steel after exposure to cryogenic temperature. Economic analysis justifies the additional cost of cryogenic treatment.

Keywords: abrasive wear; austenitization; cryogenic; microhardness; microstructure; tempering.