Comparison of laboratory rolling-sliding wear tests with in-service wear of nodular cast iron rollers against wire ropes

Abstract The present work describes the wear behaviour of nodular cast iron in rolling–sliding contact with steel wire ropes and steel wires in laboratory and in-service conditions. In each of the studied examples, the wear had proceeded through a surface fatigue process, in which inter-nodular crack propagation and simultaneous deformation in a thin sub-surface zone had resulted in the formation of ferrous scales consisting of material from the metal matrix of the cast iron. The scale layers of the wear surface were oriented towards the direction of the sliding component of the motion, and the spalling of the scales was identified as the dominating mechanism for material removal from the wear surface. The initiation behaviour of the inter-nodular cracks was analysed by crack measurements and statistical analysis of the depths and initiation angles of the cracks in relation to the wear surface. The initiation depths of the cracks increased with increasing contact pressure. Roller samples from in-service and from the component wear tests showed closely similar distributions of the crack depths and crack initiation angles. The sample from the twin-disc test showed aspects of cracking behaviour that were typical of both the rolling and the sliding direction of the roller samples.