Effect of alloying elements in Fe-based hardfacings to improve the abrasive wear behavior of ploughshares

Abstract

Generally, during soil tillage it is seen that farmers complain about the higher wear rate of agricultural implement. Wear of cultivator shovels is one of the major problem faced by farmers in the agricultural sector. Any improvement in the life of ploughshares will be of great significance to the farming sector. The aim of the present work is to improve the life of cultivator shovels by way of hardfacings by shielded metal arc welding process. The wear behavior of bare (EN-47 steel) and four different hardfacings (H1, H2, VB, and LH550) having different chromium content (i.e. 0.86% Cr, 2.4% Cr, 3.19% Cr, and 6.72% Cr) were investigated with regard to wear behavior. A test was conducted on a 60 ha area of the wheat field after harvesting (latitude 30.121207, longitude 75.009159). During the time of cultivation soil was dry and hard. Wear behavior of bare and hardfaced steel was analyzed in terms of weight loss (g/ha) and by wear resistance indices. Techniques like optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction analysis were used for testing. The hardfaced steel has shown significantly better wear behavior in comparison to bare steel except H2. Wear of ploughshares according to cultivated area was found to be 3.459 g/ha for regular, 3.41 g/ha for H1, 4.267 g/ha for H2, 2.553 g/ha for VB, and 1.993 g/ha for LH550 hardfacing. The WRIs of different hardfacings, i.e. H1, H2, VB, and LH550 were found to be 1.014, 0.81, 1.354, and 1.735.