The Effect of Carbon Content and Heat Treatment on the Rate of Abrasive Wear of Plain Carbon Steels

The effect of carbon content and hardness on the rate of abrasive wear of plain carbon steels was determined using a wet-sand erosion test machine. The type of abrasion simulated in this device is commonly referred to as “low-stress scratching abrasion.” The machine employs a revolving rubber wheel which picks up the abrasive grit and rubs it against the steel specimen with a minimum breakdown of the abrasive grit particles.

It has been found for normalized plain carbon steels that the abrasive wear rate decreases as the carbon content increases. The same steels heat-treated by quenching and tempering also show a decreasing wear rate as the carbon content increases. For a given heat-treated steel the wear rate decreases as the hardness increases. The combined data show that the abrasive wear rate of heat-treated steels depends both on their hardness and carbon content. That is, if two steels of different carbon contents are heat treated to the same hardness level, the one with the highest carbon content will have the lowest wear rate. In addition, reasonable correlation appears to exist between data from this laboratory method and field test data on plowshares.