Abrasion wear behavior of a forged and unforged Fe-B alloy

Fe-B alloys exhibit continuous networks of eutectic borides, which destroy the continuity of matrix and result in the brittleness of the material. In order to improve its toughness, Fe-B alloy was treated by hot forging process in this study. Three-body abrasion wear behaviors of forged and unforged Fe-B alloy under three different abrasive (SiC, garnet and quartz sand) and applied load conditions were studied. Wear mechanisms were investigated by using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and 3D laser scanning microscope (LSM). The result shows that under three-body abrasion condition, Fe-B alloy exhibits excellent wear resistance. The wear resistance of forged samples is higher than that of unforged samples on the three different kinds of abrasive. A correlation between the hardness of the abrasive, movement patterns of abrasive particles and applied load was found. The movement patterns of quartz sand are sliding between the contacting surfaces under the load of 3 kg. In the wear process of Fe-B alloy, sliding/cutting is the dominant removal mechanism in the case of quartz sand abrasive and rolling is the dominant removal mechanism in the case of garnet abrasive during three-body abrasion under the load of 3 kg. When Fe-B alloys are tested under the load of 1, 3 and 5 kg, it is found that load can change the movement patterns of abrasive particles. With increasing load, the movement patterns of abrasive particles are changed from rolling to sliding mechanism. Our investigations reveal that the three-body abrasive wear mechanism of forged and unforged Fe-B alloy depends on material/abrasive hardness ratio and applied load.