Abrasive wear of metallic matrix reinforced materials

It is presented an investigation of the abrasive wear behaviour of metallic matrix reinforced materials (MMRMs). Micro-scale wear tests were performed on Fe-Cr-C/NbC composite materials with different volume fractions of reinforcement particles, produced by variable powder feed rate laser cladding. The obtained results show that, depending on the conditions on which the wear tests were made, the wear resistance of the material can decrease continuously with the volume fraction of reinforcement particles or, moreover, can present a non-monotonous variation showing a maximum for a volume fraction of reinforcement particles between 20 and 30%. The identification of abrasive wear mechanisms lead for the formulation of a theoretical model for the wear of this type of materials. The model enables for a qualitative understand of experimental results and explains contradictory results that have been presented in the literature. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.