Tribology

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International Vol. 29, No. 2, pp. 105-116, 1996 Copyright @ 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0301-679X/96/$15.00

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A review of the performance of engineering materials under prevalent tribological and wear situations in South African industries
C. Allen and A. Ball*

The wear of materials used on machinery operating in a wide range of industrial situations such as mining, energy production and agriculture can cause serious inefficiencies, sudden breakdowns and consequential financial losses. Our work over two decades has concerned industrial problems encountered in South African industry, and laboratory simulations of abrasion, abrasion plus corrosion, adhesive wear, impact wear, cavitation, solid particle erosion and erosion plus corrosion situations have been successfully undertaken. Materials investigated include plain carbon and alloy steel, stainless steels, aluminium alloys, cast irons, tungsten carbide cermets, ceramics, polymers, composites and various surface treated and coated materials. The paper reviews the investigations carried out in our laboratories and conclusions we have made.
Keywords: tribology, wear, sliding wear, mechanisms engineering materials, abrasion, erosion,

Introduction Wear can be used to advantage in certain polishing, cleaning, drilling and cutting actions. However, from an engineering point of view wear has a serious deteriorating effect. The wear and corrosion of an article cause continuous depreciation but, more important, wear can cause a component to become ineffective or susceptible to sudden failure. Examples of the former include the breakdown of gas-pressure seals or hydraulic control valves, and the loss of power when needle valves of an engine carburettor are worn. A small loss of material causes a serious deterioration

in the performance of an engineering system. Another possible consequence of wear is the initiation of failure by brittle fracture, fatigue, or stress-corrosion cracking. The build-up of friction in a bearing can lead to the overloading of a component and subsequent fracture. Continuous fretting of a surface, particularly in a corrosive environment, can initiate fracture by stresscorrosion or fatigue. In view of these disastrous consequences, it is surprising that scientists in the past have paid scant attention to the subject. This may have been due to the forbidding number of complex manifestations of wear and to the difficulty of devising standard tests. While the important role of engineering design in the alleviation of wear problems is appreciated, guidelines to materials selection are now being formulated. These are based on the observed and researched response of materials of various compositions and microstructures to the
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*To whom correspondence should be addressed. Department of Materials Engineering, University of Cape Town, Rondebosch 7700, South Africa Received 7 February 1995; revised 19 June 1995; accepted 17 September I995

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localized high stresses, strains, and strain rates that characterize the process of wear. We have subjected many metallic alloys, ceramics, polymer&s, and surface-treated and coated materials to several distinctly different tests. The work has highlighted differences and similarities in performances and modes of material removal. Basic principles are emerging that allow one to optimize the composition and structure of a material for a specific application. This paper considers the classification of wear processes and presents salient information extracted from our own experimental data and observations. It is a review of our work and makes no direct reference to the work in other laboratories. We are very aware of much of the international literature and the individual papers referenced herein in turn reference work from other laboratories. Characteristics of wear processes

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Wear can be described by a multitude of terms, which are not precise and have various interpretations. However, there are three major categories of wear into which most situations can be included, viz: abrasive, adhesi;e and erosive. Figure 1 illustrates the features of these three categories. Abrasion (Fig la) includes phenomena known as scoring, gouging, cutting, ploughing and micromachining and is typified by particles of rock or sand moving at a relative velocity of about 1 m s-l on a metal surface. The abrasive action can take place under the constant load of the particles themselves, or under constrained conditions in which the displacement of the particle is fixed by a third body. These two situations are known as two-body or low stress abrasion, and three-body or high-stress abrasion respectively. In comparison with conventional mechanical tensile or hardness tests, the stresses, strains, and strain rates are high and localized and in practical situations corrosive action is frequently simultaneous and synergistic. Adhesive wear (Fig lb) includes galling, fretting, scuffing and surface fatigue. It refers to the damage produced when two contacting surfaces move relative to each other under a normal load. Surface asperities interact, and very high stresses, strains, and strain rates are generated in localized regions. This type of wear occurs in bearings, in interactions between piston rings and cylinders, and in electrical contacts; the provision of adequate lubrication is a critical factor controlling the degree of wear. The intimate and continuous contact of the two materials normally promotes high interface temperatures. Evidence for localized welding, micro-alloying, and oxidation has been given in the literature, and the production of hard detritus particles causes subsequent abrasion. Phenomena such as thermal fatigue, recrystallization, and phase transformations are also known to occur under conditions of adhesive wear. Erosive wear (Fig lc) describes the damage caused by the impact of moving particles entrained in either a gas or liquid stream. Erosion is also caused by the impact of liquid droplets and cavitation erosion is the
106 Tribology International Volume 29 Number

HARDENED. ALLOYED OR TRANSFORYEI PARTICLE WA BE PRODUCED

Fig 1 (a) Abrasive wear depicted as the damage produced by a hard particle moving under normal and tangential forces; (b) adhesive wear depicted as the interaction of materials moving with respect to one another in close contact under normal and tangential forces; (c) erosive wear depicted as the damage produced by the impact of a small solid particle, liquid droplet, or collapsing cavity in a liquid

consequence of the implosion of small cavities in a liquid medium on or close to a surface. Erosion can be a serious deteriorating effect in engineering systems, including pipelines and valves handling gases, hydraulic systems, aerospace components, and liquid impellers. The damage occurs at individual microscopic strikes and many repeated strikes may be necessary to cause material loss. The variables affecting the severity of erosion can be interactive and include particle size, mass, shape and velocity together with the flux of erosive particles and their angle of impact. The site of impact is subjected to extremely high stress, strain and strain rates and there is now evidence that local heating can be generated by the impact energy. Oxidation can therefore be induced, and corrosion
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can contribute to the total material loss in aqueous environments. This brief review highlights the many variables which affect the severity of wear in any particular circumstance; all wear processes occur under conditions of very high and localized stress, strain and strain rate. Frictional or adiabetic heating is frequently a consequence. This combination of conditions is foreign to the laboratory metallurgist, and predictive assessments of a materials response to a wear situation are therefore difficult. Some experimental observations This section gives information from our experimental work that is pertinent to the mechanisms by which various materials both resist wear and lose volume. Table 1 lists families of materials that were tested under different wear conditions. For details of the test methods, the materials tested, and the results, the reader is referred to the published works1-s7.
Abrasive-corrosive wear

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Abrasive wear is a commonly encountered degradation process in industrial machines and components used in the mining, power generation and agricultural industries of South Africa. We have approached this problem by designing experimental rigs through which the abrasive wear resistance of a wide range of materials can be evaluated in situ allowing the establishment of tables of performance which can be incorporated into design criteria in order to extend component lifetimes. Laboratory and in situ tests have been carried out and the results have enabled us to identify the composition and microstructure of materials that best resist aggressive abrasive and corrosive conditions encountered in the mining, energy and agricultural industries1-7,2-2646. As an example, a series of heat treated steels has been subjected to abrasive wear testing in various soils utilizing a purpose-made ploughing rig22.24. Wear rates were found to vary by 20 orders of magnitude depending on the aggressiveness of the soil. Very aggressive soils lead to the development of high temperatures in the steel through frictional forces. This results in tempering of the hardened steel components and consequently the wear rates are similar to those of the much softer mild steel components. Figures 2 and 3 demonstrate the general inadequacy of hardness as a guide to selection. Alloys with vastly different hardness values can have similar abrasion resistance and, conversely, alloys with the same hardness can wear at very different rates. It should be noted that alloys that have been observed to transform under abrasive conditions show outstanding performance. Stress induced transformations to martensite such as found in transformable metastable stainless steels or the development of extremely hard white layers due to thermo-plastic deformation can lead to an increase in abrasive wear resistance which confirms that initial surface hardness is no criterion for the selection of steels for abrasive wear resistance. It must also be realized that steels with hardnesses in excess of 450 HV do not have the required formability,
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Hardness Hv30

Fig 2 Abrasion resistance of alloys in dry conditions relative to the abrasion resistance of mild steel plotted against bulk hardness (after Burke?). Note that the transformable alloys outperform alloys with considerably higher hardnesses

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Hardness Hv30

Fig 3 Wear resistanceof alloys in conditions that include corrosion relative to the wear resistance of mild steel plotted against bulk hardness (after Burke?). Note that stainless steelsfar outperform alloys of equivalent hardness

weldability or toughness for normal engineering practice. Figure 3 clearly shows that there is a need for a chromium level of at least 11% if the material is to withstand the significant contribution of corrosion to total wear in wet abrasive applications. Unstable
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C. Allen and A. Ball tested Adhesive wear Cavitation erosion Particle erosion in gas carrier Particle erosion in liquid carrier Erosion/ corrosion Impact wear

Table 1 Literature Material

references

abrasion

DV

METALS Aluminium alloys Copper alloys Nickel alloys Carbon steel Stainless steel Tool steel Cast iron NON METALS Carbon CERAMICS Alumina Sialon Boron nitride Zirconia Diamond POLYMERS UHMWPE 41 28,41,44, 48 41,53 53 41.42 14,41 41 39,40,43 22,36 29,33 29,33 33 29,33 15,33 33,45,47, 50 15,27, 45,47,50 50 45,47, 50 57 57 57 57 49 27 9,lO 1I2 I4 I5 I24, 26 12345 I , I I I 1 1,25 I,2,45,6,7, 19.21.31 1,2,3,4,5, 19,21,31 1 30 9,lO 9,ll 9,13,15 9,lO 27 27 27

17,32 17,32

52

17 17,32 17

23,38, 54 23,38, 54

34,37

57

32 32

Nylon Polycarbonate Other COMPOSITES WC-Cermets AluminiumSIC Polymer SURFACE TREATMENT Carburizing Nitriding Boronizing COATINGS Nickel Ceramic CVD Hard metals 108 Tribology

41 41

14,41 14 14,41

41 41

1,22,36,46 35,51,56 41 35,51,56 41,42,53

13,15,27,29 35,51,56 14,41

15,16,20, 27,29 41

17,32 35,51,56 52

55

15 12,13 12,13 12 12 12 International Volume 29 Number 2 1996

27 27 27

32 32 32 32 32 32 32

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austenitic stainless steels and dual-phase steels based on 3CR12 show potential for many such situations2*3,8 Ceramics such as alumina have been found to be ideal for abrasive wear resistance in power station ash conditioners which in the past have used steel paddle blades to mix aggressive alumina silicate particles for subsequent processing 22,36. Loss of such ceramic occurs through intergranular crack propagation and the removal of whole grains. Thus fine, dense ceramic microstructures which have a greater ability to absorb energy from cumulative wear events perform best. Similarly, WC cermets have also been shown to be excellent in these situations46. Material loss occurs through the interaction of the ash and the softer cobalt binder which ultimately results in the loosening and loss of whole tungsten grains. The controlling factors here are the size of the ash particles in relation to the mean free path between the tungsten grains. On the basis of this work, ceramic and hard metals caps have been designed for the conditioner blades which, coupled to the flexibility of the steel, provide improved efficiency, extended lifetimes and lower costs. Evidence for synergism between corrosion and abrasion in many practical situations was gained from a metallographic examination of lightly abraded and corroded surfaces and the effect of frequency of exposure to abrasive and corrosive conditions6,21,31. In one specimen, corrosion was confined to the vicinity of a scratch on a polished surface of mild steel (Fig 4), and the removal of the corrosion product revealed an array of corrosion pits along the scratch (Fig 5). The deformed zone associated with the scratch had clearly accelerated the corrosive action. The conclusion was corroborated by an observed increase in total wear loss when corrosive and abrasive treatments were more frequent for a given total exposure. The synergism can be ascribed to a change in corrosion kinetics due to the presence of a very high dislocation density at the abraded surface and a consequential disturbance or change of the passivating surface film.

Fig 5 Specimen identical to that of Fig 4 after the removal of the corrosion product (after Noel). Note the severe pitting along the line of the abrasive scratch

Information concerning the state of surface deformation can be obtained from microhardness measurements made on taper sections polished at small angles to the worn surface and from the transmission electron microscopy of thin samples prepared from near-surface regions5s24. Hardness profiles for low-carbon steels such as ferritic stainless steels and mild steel frequently displayed a softened zone at the worn surface (Fig 6), and dislocation arrays consistent with dynamic recovery processes were observed. However, medium- and highcarbon steels show a severely hardened white zone at the surface (Fig 7) and some indication of an intermediate tempered zone.
Adhesive wear

In recent years attention has been focused on the sliding wear behaviour of polymers and polymer composite materials due to their increasing use as bushings and seals in machinery. Accordingly we have subjected a large range of polymer and filled polymeric

160 0 20 DEPTH BELOW LO ABRADED 60 SURFACE

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Fig 4 Abrasive scratch on a polished surface of mild steel that has been subjected to a corrosive environment (after NoeP) Tribology

Fig 6 Microhardness profile obtained from a taper section polished on an abraded sample of ferritic stainlesssteel (after Harris) International Volume 29 Number 2 1996 109

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difficult and chemical adhesion between the metal and polymer is too low to sustain a coherent film (Fig 9). Fillers improve the mechanical properties of the polymer but no simple correlation exists between mechanical properties and wear behaviour or indeed wear behaviour and frictional properties. Fillers such as graphite have been found to improve adhesive wear behaviour by improving the thermal conductivity of the polymer and negating changes in viscoelastic properties with rising velocity or load application. UHMWPE has been identified as the general polymer for use in industrial applications because of its excellent strength to weight ratio coupled to good tribological properties. For specialist applications it may be necessary to consider other composite polymers.
Fig 7 Microstructural condition and microhardness shown on a taper section polished on an abraded sample of medium-carbon steel (after Quirks6)

materials to unidirectional and reciprocating sliding motion under both dry and water lubricated environments against a hardened stainless steel counterface over a range of velocities, pressures and counterface roughnesses28,42,48,53. General observations from this study indicate that considerable deformation of unreinforced polymer occurs due to interaction with metal counterface asperities which in turn leads to changes in the crystallinity of the smooth molecular profile polymers such as UHMWPE and PTFE. Small particles of polymer which become detached accumulate through adhesion and mechanical interaction between the machinery marks on the metal counterface giving rise to the formation of transfer films and a matched interface which significantly reduces wear rates (Fig 8). The formation of a full transfer film is inhibited in aqueous environments, through progressive polishing of the counterface by reinforcing particles such as glass fibre and graphite, or where sliding is conducted parallel to the grinding marks on the metal surface. Under such circumstances mechanical interlocking is

Another form of adhesive wear can be termed impact wear where material is lost due to repeated high energy impact conditions 23,38,54.Tests have been conducted to study the wear processes which occur during interaction between components in reciprocating machinery such as poppet valves. Experimental rigs capable of simulating service conditions have tested the performance of heat treated and stainless steels. Impact energies of 2-5 J have been used at frequencies between ,5 and 50 Hz. The onset of wear was preceded by an incubation period during which strain is accumulated in the material prior to crack initiation and the propagation of surface fatigue cracks. Surface damage took the form of surface tractions caused by metal to metal adhesion and pitting through the propagation of surface cracks (Figs 10-12). High material hardness coupled with high fracture toughness and a low force of surface adhesion have been found to be important. Heat treated low alloy steels perform well in such situations. Generally although impact wear rates are found to follow an empirical law of the type W = KNE, (E impact energy, N number of impacts, and K and n are constants) the most important means of reducing wear is to keep impact velocities as low as possible. Studies of the edge flaking associated with repeated

Fig 8 A SEM micrograph showing a smooth UHMWPE transfer film on the metal surface. Arrow indicates direction of sliding (after Marcus48) 110 Tribology International Volume 29 Number

Fig 9 Showing the lack of a coherent UHMWPE transfer film when sliding is conducted parallel to grinding marks on metal counterface. Compare with Fig 8 (after Marcus44) 2 1996