The influence of cryogenic processing on wear on the impact wear resistance of low carbon steel and lamellar graphite cast iron

The aim of this work was to investigate the influence of deep cryogenic processing (77 K) on the resistance to impact wear of two common engineering materials; low carbon steel and lamellar graphite cast iron. Both specimen types were subjected to identical deep cryogenic treatment and treated and untreated specimens of each material were tested for comparison. The specimens were subjected to repetitive percussion impact normal to their surface at 10 Hz (impacts per second) in a ball-on-flat configuration. These tests were carried out using a bespoke, reciprocating hammer type impact wear test-rig. The total number of impacts applied to a particular specimen ranged from 4500 to 72,000. The wear scar produced on each specimen was measured and the nature of any wear features and debris recorded. Selected specimens were further analysed to investigate the microstructural transformation between the cryogenically processed specimens and those that had been left untreated. The results of the work presented here suggest that cryogenic processing can have a positive effect on the impact wear resistance of Fe–C alloys.