Influence of Cryogenic Treatments on the Fracture Toughness of AISI 420 Martensitic Stainless Steel

G. PRIETO; W. TUCKART; J. PEREZ IPIÑA

MATERIALS AND TECHNOLOGY

INST ZA KOVINSKE MATERIALE I IN TEHNOLOGIE

Lugar: Ljubljana; Año: 2017 vol. 51 p. 591 - 596

1580-2949

Cryogenic treatments have been employed over the last three decades in both tool and high-alloy steels to improve wear resistance, mainly through the transformation of retained austenite and the precipitation of fine carbides. The application of these treatments to low-alloy steels and even to non-ferrous materials is becoming the subject of several investigations, due to their potentiality to reduce wear.The objective of the present work is to characterize the wear behavior of a cryogenically treated low-carbon AISI 420 martensitic stainless steel, by means of pin-on-disk tribological tests. Wear tests were performed according to ASTM G99 standard, under a range of applied normal loads and in two different environments, namely a vaseline bath and an argon atmosphere. Wear tracks were analyzed by optical microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to evaluate wear volume, track geometry, surface features and the tribolayers generated after testing.In this study, it has been experimentally demonstrated that cryogenically treated specimens showed a wear resistance improvement ranging from 35 to 90% compared to conventionally treated ones.