Microstructure and Wear Characteristics of Fe-Based Hard-Facing Alloy Claddings Formed by Gas Tungsten Arc Welding

Abstract

The current investigation discusses the effect of Mn and Si contents on the microstructure and abrasive wear characteristic in Fe-based hard-facing alloy. A series of Fe-based hard-facing alloys are successfully fabricated onto the S45C steel by gas tungsten arc welding (GTAW). Results reveal that microstructure contains great amounts of martensite phases and moderate amounts of austenite phases. Si element added into Fe-based hard-facing alloy can not obviously affect the properties of the claddings, such as martensite phase, hardness, and abrasive wear resistance. Nevertheless, Mn element added into Fe-based hard-facing alloy can efficiently affect the martensite phase, hardness, and abrasive wear resistance of the claddings. The martensite contents decreases with the increasing of Mn contents in the cladding layers. The hardness increases as the Mn contents decreases, because the martensite contents increases. The abrasive wear resistance is not only related to the hardness of the cladding layer but the martensite contents of the cladding layer. The abrasive wear resistance is an inverse proportion to Mn contents of the cladding layers. Especially, the cladding layers containing 1.4Si-0.3Mn has the highest hardness of HRC 60.1 and the lowest wear loss of 0.37g.