Two-Body and Three-Body Abrasive Wear Behaviors of Fe-2wt%B Alloy Modified With Various K₂SO₄ Additions

Abstract

Fe-B alloy is a candidate for a low-cost wear-resistant material but shows very low fracture toughness. To improve the toughness of Fe-B alloys, for this study we attempted to break the continuous network of eutectic Fe₂B via K₂SO₄ addition and heat treatment, so that the Fe₂B particles transform to be more spherical. The microstructure, mechanical properties, and two-body and three-body abrasive wear behaviors of the alloys modified with various K₂SO₄ additions were systemically investigated. The results show that the heat-treated alloys mainly consist of martensite and M₂B (M = Cr, Mn, Fe, etc.). With the addition of K₂SO₄, a new phase α-MnS forms in the alloy, and the circularity value of M₂B increases from 0.13 to 0.44. The impact toughness of alloy increases from 6.09 J/cm² to 14.72 J/cm² with an increment of 142%, although the Rockwell hardness does not show obvious change. Meanwhile, the two-body wear weight loss of alloys exhibits a “decrease and then increase” trend with increasing K₂SO₄ addition, while the three-body wear weight loss decreases first and then remains unchanged. The different wear behaviors were investigated and discussed.

Keywords:

• Abrasive wear
• wear mechanisms
• borides
• Fe-B alloys
• hardness

Acknowledgments

We thank Mr. Zijun Ren and Miss Yanan Chen at the Instrument Analysis Center at Xi’an Jiaotong University for their assistance with SEM analysis.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.52005217), the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2021YFB3701204), the Key-Area Research and Development Program of GuangDong Province (2019B010942001), the Basic and Applied Basic Research Fund Project of Guangdong Province in China (2021A1515010523 and 2020A1515110020), and University Research Platform and Research Projects of the Guangdong Education Department (2022ZDZX3003). YZ would like to thank the support from Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) of Singapore via Structural Metal Alloys Programme (No. A18B1b0061).