Abrasive-wear Resistance of Austenitic Cast Iron

A research of wear resistance of an austenitic cast iron with higher resistance to abrasive-wear and maintained corrosion resistance characteristic for Ni-Resist cast iron is presented. For the examination, structure of raw castings was first formed by proper selection of chemical composition (to make machining possible). Next, a heat treatment was applied (annealing at 550 degrees C for 4 hours followed by air cooling) in order to increase abrasive-wear resistance. One of the factors deciding intensity of wear appeared to be the chilling degree of castings. However, with respect to unfavourable influence of chilling on machining properties, an important factor increasing abrasivewear resistance is transformation of austenite to acicular ferrite as a result of annealing non-chilled castings. Heat treatment of non-chilled austenitic cast iron (Equ(Ni) > 16%) resulted in much higher abrasive-wear resistance in comparison to the alloy having pearlitic matrix at ambient temperature (Equ(Ni) 5.4 divided by 6.8%).