Field and Laboratory Abrasion Tests on Plowshares

A laboratory abrasion test was compared with the abrasion caused by actual soil-tilling to develop a method of evaluating ferrous alloys for agricultural applications requiring wear resistance. The comparison was based on the results obtained from three commercially produced wrought, heat-treated, high carbon steel plowshares and two experimental compositions; one was a cast iron alloyed with 1% chromium and the other was a white cast iron alloyed with 12% chromium and 1% molybdenum. For these widely different types of ferrous alloys, good correlation was found between the relative abrasion resistance determined in the laboratory test and in actual field tests.