Fundamental principles for choosing steels on the basis of results of wear tests

The development of scientific foundations for the creation of new high-strength steels with high wear resistance and their application is a very important problem of modern engineering. The difficulties of its solution are connected with the absence of methodological foundations for a reliable estimation of the wear resistance. The fundamental scientific principles for control over this characteristic with allowance for the structural changes and the corresponding changes in the mechanical properties of steels have not been developed. The place of this characteristic and its relationship with the structure in the theory of fracture of materials under various loads has not been determined yet. At the same time, the wear resistance is a parameter that can characterize the operational reliability of steels under various conditions. However, the methods for determining the wear resistance should be substantiated experimentally and theoretically. The aim of the present work consisted in choosing steels for parts operating under the conditions of composite loads and abrasive wear. Translated from Metallovedenie i Termicheskaya Obrabotka Metallov, No. 2, pp. 28–30, February, 1998.