A wear resistant ductile metal-toughened Cr13Ni5Si2 ternary metal silicide alloy

A ductile metal-toughened Cr–Ni–Si ternary metal silicide wear resistant alloy with a dual-phase microstructure consisting of Cr13Ni5Si2 ternary metal silicide primary dendrites and the interdendritic nickel-base solid solution (γ) was designed and fabricated by the laser melting/continuous deposition process. Wear resistance of the γ-toughened Cr13Ni5Si2 intermetallic alloy was evaluated on an MM-200 block-on-wheel dry sliding wear tester at room temperature. The γ-toughened Cr13Ni5Si2 intermetallic alloy has excellent wear resistance and extremely low load-sensitivity of wear under dry sliding wear test conditions due to the inherent high hardness, abnormal hardness–temperature relation and strong covalent-dominant atomic bonds. The isolated toughening γ phase played a positive role in reducing volume wear rate by retarding crack propagation and preventing pull-out of the broken Cr13Ni5Si2 fragments from the wear surface.