The Wear Behavior of Coated WC/Ni Imposed by TIG Welding Method on St52 Steel

Surface alloying by TIG process, is one of the techniques to improve the surface properties of the steels. This method can be conducted without changing the substrate properties. Alloying is carried out by adding certain alloying elements before or during surface melting. In this study, Surface alloying is done using nickel and Tungsten Carbide reinforcement particles, and by gas Tungsten arc welding process on steel St52. Surface melting was conducted with applied current of 130 mA and the effect of increasing the percentage of WC powder on surface hardening of the samples were evaluated. The range of increasing hardness the coatings made between 225 to 680 Vickers was measured and the amount hardness of the uncoated sample is about 180 Vickers. Infrastructure assessment of worn surfaces was performed by scanning electron microscopy SEM. Typical abrasion resistance was evaluated by means of reciprocating wear machine. The results of wear surfaces showed that by increasing the amount of WC reinforcement particles, the matrix strength against changing the form is increased, and eventually causes to improve the wear resistance of the samples. The wear test results showed that with increasing percentages of Tungsten Carbide reinforcement particles up to 80%, the amount of weight loss were significantly reduced, and the wear rate of the samples decreases up to 100 ⁄ .