Un-lubricated sliding wear performance of unalloyed austempered ductile iron under high contact stresses

The dry sliding wear behaviour of unalloyed austempered ductile iron (ADI) was studied in a reciprocating tribotester using contact loads in the range 40–140 N. The results obtained show that austempering in the temperature range 325–375 °C significantly improves the tribological properties of the unalloyed spheroidal graphite iron. The friction coefficient was reduced by a factor of ten (10) with the wear resistance increasing by several orders of magnitude. The improvement in wear performance was attributed to: the lubricity inherent the graphite nodules, the increase in initial hardness brought about by the ausferrite structure, and the work hardening of the surface as retained austenite is transformed to martensite by plastic deformation, and in the process reducing considerably the sensitivity of the specific wear rate to loading. Optical, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) results pertaining to the wear tracks suggest that two main wear mechanisms are responsible for material removal in the unlubricated sliding wear of ADI, namely, plastic yielding and oxidation, with the latter producing hard oxide particles that act as abrasives. Massive plastic yielding followed by delamination and sometimes oxidation accounts for material loss in the much softer as cast ductile spheroidal graphite iron.