Adhesive and abrasive wear behaviour of TiC alloyed, sintered, austenitic stainless steels

This study examines abrasive and adhesive wear behaviour of austenitic stainless steel and its TiC alloyed composite produced through powder metallurgy technique. Abrasive wear tests have been carried out using a pin on disc wear tester under loads of 10, 20 and 30 N. For adhesive wear tests, a block on ring wear tester has been used under loads of 20, 40, 60 and 80 N. A possible correlation between the hardness, microstructure and wear behaviour of the samples has been investigated. The abrasive wear tests have revealed that the highest rate of mass loss occurred in the austenitic matrix stainless steel sample; also, mass losses decreased with an increased rate of reinforcing material in the composite. In adhesive wear tests, interparticle spacing developed from severe wear and extreme plastic deformation under heavy loads; however, at low loads, oxidation type wear was shown to be dominant.