Wear characteristics of INCONEL 690 and INCONEL 600 in elevated temperature

In this paper, the fretting wear characteristics of INCONEL 690 (I-690) and INCONEL 600 (I-600) was evaluated to verify the wear mechanism and the wear life. Because of the excellent corrosion-resistance of nickel-based alloy, those materials are used for steam generator tube in nuclear power plants. Sometimes the tubes are damaged due to small amplitude vibration, so called fretting wear. To verify the fretting wear mechanisms the wear experiment was carried with the crossed-cylinder wear tester, which used a cam to oscillate the specimen. The test was carried out at loads of 40N and 90N in elevated temperatures of water. The temperatures of water were 20 degrees C, 50 degrees C and 80 degrees C. The increase of water temperature causes the oxidation of the contact area to be delayed, and the amount of wear on oxide layer to be reduced. The main wear mechanisms of fretting were abrasive wear and oxidation wear.