Wear behavior of steel 1080 with different microstructures during dry sliding

The wear mechanisms of steel 1080 and the wear behaviour of various microstructures in the steel were systematically studied by wear testing, and by SEM and TEM observations of worn surface and wear particles. The experimental results show that three dominant wear mechanisms appeared in succession with increasing normal load and/or speed during unlubricated sliding. The transitions of the wear mechanisms depend mainly upon the conditions of testing, and changes in microstructure of the steel have no marked effect on the transitions. In the case of oxidation-dominated mild wear, no obvious differences in wear volume were found for the various microstructures. However, considerable differences in the wear volumes were observed under the condition of severe wear characterized by adhesion and delamination and the wear resistance of the different microstructures increased in the order: spheroidized carbide, martensite, bainite and lamellar pearlite. The experimental results also indicate that the differences in wear resistance of the various microstructures were caused by the differences in microstructural thermal stability, resistance to plastic deformation, resistance to nucleation and propagation of microcracks and especially by the differences in energy consumption in these layers during wear.