3. Results and discussion
3.1. Microstructure
Fig. 4 shows the microstructure of the investigated materials.
Both tool steels presented a microstructure consisting of tempered
martensite (Fig. 4(a)). As shown in Table 1, Toolox44 has a higher
content of alloying elements compared to Toolox33. It is well
known that in sufficient concentration, substitutional elements
like Cr, Mo, and V tend to form fine alloy carbides during the
tempering of steels [18,19]. The formation of these carbides occurs
generally in the range of 500 °C to 600 °C and is accompanied by
an increase in hardness even to higher levels compared to the ones
obtained with the as-quenched martensite. This phenomenon is
known as secondary hardening [19]. Toolox33 does not show a
secondary hardening peak during the heat treatment due to its
relatively low concentration of alloying elements. This results in a
lower hardness but a higher impact toughness of Toolox33 when
compared to Toolox44 as presented in Table 2 [15]. The boron steel
showed a ferritic–pearlitic microstructure (Fig. 4(b)). In this type of
microstructure, pearlite is known to provide a substantial contribution
to strength.
3.2. Hot hardness
Fig. 5 shows the hardness of the three investigated materials as
a function of temperature. As expected, the hardness decreased as
temperature increased. Both tool steels presented a similar behaviour
with a gradual and almost linear decrease in hardness from
20 °C to 600 °C. At this temperature, both tool steels had lost only
20% of their initial hardness which was expected since these
materials are tempered at 590 °C. This behaviour can be attributed
to the presence of fine carbides in their microstructures, which
strengthen the matrix by acting as obstacles to dislocation motion
[19]. At higher temperatures, a drastic reduction in hardness of
both tool steels was observed. This could be caused by the coarsening
of carbides above the tempering temperature together with
the phase transformation from martensite into austenite at 745 °C
(Ac1). This transformation temperature was obtained using a
model developed by Trzaska and Dobrzanski [20].
In the case of boron steel, the hardness gradually decreases
from room temperature (190 HV) to 500 °C (155 HV) that may
be associated with a reduction in dislocation density. Above this
temperature, a more pronounced decrease in hardness was
observed until a final value of 32 HV at 800 °C was reached. This
could be attributed to the phase transformation of the pearlite into
austenite occurring at approximately 734 °C for this steel. Even
though complete transformation can take several hours, it has
been reported that as little as three minutes may be sufficient for a
steel at 720 °C for the formation of austenite nuclei at the ferrite–
pearlite interfaces [21].
3.3. Abrasive wear behaviour
The influence of temperature on the wear behaviour of the
three different materials is given in Fig. 6. In case of Toolox44 the
Fig. 3. OM images of the worn surface of a specimen after the abrasive test. (a) Before and (b) after the image analysis. (For interpretation of the references to color in this
figure caption, the reader is referred to the web version of this article.)
Fig. 4. Microstructures of the investigated materials (a) Toolox44 and (b) boron steel.
30 S. Hernandez et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 27–35
wear rate showed no change from room temperature to 200 °C
followed by a small and linear increase up to 600 °C. Finally, a large
increase in the wear rate was observed above this temperature.
Toolox33 showed a marginal decrease in the wear rate with an
increase in temperature from 20 °C to 200 °C followed by a gradual
increase up to 600 °C. Once again, a significant increase at the
highest temperatures was observed. The high standard deviation
obtained in the experiments carried out at 800 °C makes it difficult
to identify a clear trend.
Regarding the boron steel, an increase in temperature to 200 °C
resulted in a more pronounced decrease in the wear rate compared
to that in Toolox33. From this point onwards, a linear
increase in the temperature range of 300–500 °C was observed,
followed by a rapid increase in wear up to 800 °C.