Wear resistance of an additively manufactured high-carbon martensitic stainless steel

Eleftherios Iakovakis; Egemen Avcu; Matthew J Roy; Mark Gee; Allan Matthews

doi:10.1038/s41598-022-15621-9

Wear resistance of an additively manufactured high-carbon martensitic stainless steel

Sci Rep. 2022 Jul 22;12(1):12554. doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-15621-9.

Authors

Eleftherios Iakovakis^{1

2}, Egemen Avcu^{3

4

5}, Matthew J Roy^{6

7}, Mark Gee⁸, Allan Matthews^{9

10}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. eleftherios.iakovakis@manchester.ac.uk.
² Department of Engineering, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, TW11 0LW, UK. eleftherios.iakovakis@manchester.ac.uk.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, 41001, Turkey. avcuegemen@gmail.com.
⁴ Department of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. avcuegemen@gmail.com.
⁵ Department of Materials, Henry Royce Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. avcuegemen@gmail.com.
⁶ Department of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. matthew.roy@manchester.ac.uk.
⁷ Department of Materials, Henry Royce Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK. matthew.roy@manchester.ac.uk.
⁸ Department of Engineering, National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, TW11 0LW, UK.
⁹ Department of Materials, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.
¹⁰ Department of Materials, Henry Royce Institute, The University of Manchester, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK.

Abstract

The dry sliding wear behaviour of a high carbon martensitic stainless steel (HCMSS) consisting of ~ 22.5 vol% of chromium (Cr)- and vanadium (V)-rich carbides processed by electron beam melting (EBM) has been captured. The microstructure consisted of martensite and retained austenite phases with a homogeneous distribution of sub-micron-sized V-rich and micron-sized Cr-rich carbides, leading to relatively high hardness. The CoF decreased ~ 14.1% with increasing load in the steady-state, due to the material transferred from the wear track over the counterbody. The wear rate of the HCMSS compared to martensitic tool steel processed in the same manner, and it was nearly identical under low applied load. The dominant wear mechanism was removal of the steel matrix through abrasion, followed by the oxidation of the wear track, while three-body abrasive wear occurred with increasing load. A plastically deformed zone beneath the wear track was revealed through cross-sectional hardness mapping. Specific phenomena occurred with increasingly aggressive wear conditions were described with carbide cracking, pull-out of V-rich carbides and matrix cracking. This study revealed the wear performance of the additively manufactured HCMSS, which could pave the way for producing components for wear-related applications ranging from shafts to plastic injection moulds via EBM.