Abrasive wear behavior of D2 tool steel with respect to load and sliding speed under dry sand/rubber wheel abrasion condition

The dry sand/rubber wheel abrasion tester is widely used in industry and laboratories to evaluate wear and rank materials. For industrial application, this apparatus is often used under a fixed load and a fixed speed to have all tested materials evaluated under the same condition. However, whether or not such a test with fixed load and speed can provide accurate information is in question. This paper reports our study on wear resistances of a Be–Cu alloy, 17-4 PH steel and D2 tool steel using a rubber-wheel tester. Different loads and sliding speeds were chosen for the abrasion test and SiO2 sand was used as the abrasive. It was shown that wear losses of the Be–Cu alloy and 17-4 PH steel increased with an increase in the applied load but kept almost unchanged as the sliding speed was increased. However, the wear loss of D2 tool steel decreased as either the load or the sliding speed was increased. Such behavior of D2 steel makes the adequacy of the dry sand/rubber wheel tester for ranking materials using only one load and one sliding speed questionable. In order to explain the unexpected performance of D2 steel, worn surface of D2 steel was analyzed using X-ray diffraction and SEM, and the morphology of SiO2 sand was also examined using SEM. Possible mechanism for the difference in wear behavior between these materials is discussed.