Development and performance of new hard and wear-resistant engineering materials

Wear is a major problem in many industrial applications, and the development of wear-resistant materials is therefore both a technical and an economic advantage. Iron-base composites bring new possibilities into the production of wear-resistant materials because of their high hardness and sufficient fracture toughness. They are suitable replacements for the conventional WC/Co cermets owing to their lower fabrication cost, better machinability, weldability, and corrosion resistance. In this study, hot-work steel/Cr₃C₂ composites and reference wear-resistant materials were produced by hot isostatic pressing. It was found that the matrix powder size used during processing did not affect the resultant wear properties of the composite. On the other hand, the impact toughness increased when fine matrix powders were used. The increasing reinforcement volume fraction increased significantly the hardness and wear resistance of the composite; however, the impact resistance decreased. The newly proposed hot-work steel/30 vol% Cr₃C₂ composite demonstrated a better combination of properties than some of the most abrasion-resistant materials available today.