The possibility of evaluating and predicting the wear resistance (WR) of hardened and tempered highcarbon
steels with the use of magnetic and electromagnetic methods has been shown in [1–3]. This paper
considers the issue of using the eddy-current and coercimetric techniques for testing the abrasive WR of
structural steels that are widely used as materials for severely worn parts of machines.
Of special scientific and practical interest is the search for efficient methods of nondestructive testing
(NDT) of the structural states and predicting the physicomechanical properties of surface layers of iron–
carbon alloys strengthened via state-of-the-art methods involving high-energy effects, e.g., laser irradiation.
The application of physical methods is usually intended for testing the depth of the hardened layer resulting
from laser processing [4
−
9]. The objective of this study was to consider the use of the eddy-current method
for testing wear-resistant structures formed as a result of laser irradiation in the surface layer of mediumcarbon
steel existing in the initial heat-strengthened state (bulk hardening and low-temperature tempering)
or in the as-delivered state (normalization).
The testing of changes in the structure and properties of laser-strengthened surface during tempering
(heating) is an important problem because the articles that were subjected to laser processing may additionally
be tempered to increase their crack resistance, fatigue strength, and other strength characteristics
[10, 11]. In addition, considerable heating of laser-strengthened articles may take place during subsequent
operations (grinding, welding, etc.) and during service at elevated temperatures and under friction (frictional
heating) [12]. Therefore, in this study, we performed a comparative analysis of tempering-caused changes
in the mechanical (hardness and WR) and electromagnetic characteristics of medium-carbon steel subjected
to laser and bulk hardening.