Influence Of Porosity And Alloy Addition On The Wear Behaviour Of A Sinter-Forged C45 Steel Using Taguchi Method

Elemental powders of Atomized Iron (Fe), Carbon (C) and Molybdenum (Mo) were weighed and mixed in a pot mill to yield the composition of C45, C45-1%Mo and C45-2%Mo Steels, then compacted and sintered. The Sintered preforms had a density- 75% of the Theoretical Density. Then the Sintered preforms were subjected to densification to get two densities- 80% and 85% of the theoretical density through Forging. The sintered and densified preforms of alloy steels are subsequently machined to get the required test specimens. The experiments were conducted on a pin-on-disc Tribometer, conforming to ASTM G99 standards, on a rotating EN32 disc. Using Minitab 16 software, the Dry Sliding wear experiments were planned using L27 Orthogonal Array. The % Theoretical Density of the Specimens, % Mo Addition, Load and Sliding Speed were taken as input parameters, mass loss was the output parameter. It was observed that the increasing density of alloy steels adversely affects the wear resistance of the alloy steels and mass loss is increased. It was found that the addition of Mo significantly improves the wear resistance of the alloy steels irrespective of the densities due to hard phase carbides present in the microstructure. Empirical correlations for mass loss with respect to input parameters had been developed using Regression Analysis. In the case of Mo added alloy, Mo particulates embedded between the ferrite-pearlite grains are observed from the microstructure.