Effect of Aging Temperature on the Fracture Mode and Wear Mechanism in the Hadfield Austenitic Manganese Steel

In this study, aging temperature effect on the fracture mode and wear mechanism of the Hadfield steel was investigated. For this purpose, 5 blocks were casted from Hadfield steel. After the casting, all blocks austenitized in 1100°C for 2 hours and immediately quenched in the pure water. Then, one block at austenitising conditions remained and four other blocks the aging heat treatment in 450, 500, 550 and 600°C for 1 hours. In the next step, uniaxial tensile, hardness measuring by Vickers method and wear by pin-ondisk method tests were applied on them. To evaluation of the microstructures was conducted by optical microscopy and the fractured surfaces and wear mechanism were observed by scanning electron microscopy. Optical microscopy observations showed that the aging heat treatment temperature increase, leads to increases carbide precipitates and decreasing austenite grains size in the Hadfield steel microstructure. The results of mechanical tests showed that aging temperature increase lead to increase in hardness, strength and wear resistance of Hadfield steel, but in return reduces fracture strain. Also, scanning electron microscopy images from wear and fractured surfaces showed that aging temperature increase lead to the creation of brittle fracture and in all aged samples sticky wear took place.