Friction and wear behaviour of high strength boron steel at elevated temperatures of up to 800 °C

There has been a growing usage of high strength steels, particularly in automobile applications mainly as structural parts in view of their light weight and high strength properties. These materials are also being considered for dynamic applications. However, the understanding of their tribological behaviour vis-a-vis their hot forming and also as tribological materials is highly inadequate. The present work thus aims at creating new knowledge about the tribological characteristics of high strength steels and bridging this existing gap. High temperature tribological studies on different tool steels (with and without surface treatment) sliding against high strength boron steel (with and without coating) and studies on self-mated hardened high strength boron steel under dry reciprocating sliding conditions have been conducted. High temperature tribological studies keeping in view the hot metal forming aspects were conducted by using an SRV machine whereas a two-disc machine was employed for investigating their fundamental friction and wear behaviour. The results from the high temperature studies indicate that the friction is dependent on temperature since a reduced friction level was observed with increasing temperature. The wear of the tool steels increased with increasing temperature and nitriding of the tool steels provided better protection against severe wear. The results from the study on self-mated hardened high strength boron steel showed that sliding speed has a marginal effect on friction whereas the effect of contact pressure is more pronounced (decreasing friction with increased contact pressure). The specific wear rate decreased with increased sliding speed.