Effects of TiC and residual austenite synergistic strengthening mechanism on impact-abrasive wear behavior of bainite steel

Abstract The complex interaction between stress concentration and abrasive embedding is a crucial issue in impact-abrasive wear. By comparing with the conventional tempered martensitic steel, this work attempts to find a correlation between the microstructure and wear resistance of bainitic steel, synergistically strengthened by TiC and the residual austenite (RA). The wear behaviors and work-hardening characteristics of the two steels vary under different impact loads. Bainitic steel has a preferable wear resistance despite its lower initial hardness. This is mainly attributed to the fact that the RA in bainite steel produces a greater work-hardening effect through the transformation-induced plasticity effect and alleviates crack propagation. At the same time, TiC particles resist abrasive embedding into the matrix and effectively decrease the wear failure caused by micro-cutting.