Jens Hardell

Investigations into the occurrence of galling during hot forming of Al–Si-coated high-strength steel:

Galling is a severe form of adhesive wear associated with both cold and hot metal forming operations. In hot sheet metal forming of Al–Si-coated ultrahigh-strength steel (UHSS), transfer occurs from the coated UHSS to the tool surface. This leads to poor quality of produced parts, damage of expensive tooling, and increased downtime for maintenance of the tools. This study thus aims at identifying the salient mechanism(s), which give rise to initiation/occurrence of galling at elevated temperatures. This has been accomplished by analysing actual hot forming tools and through systematic parametric tribological investigations in the laboratory. The analysis of the actual tools has shown that the transferred layer consists of Al, Si, and Fe. The structure of the transferred materials is composed of sintered/compacted wear particles. The parametric study has shown that galling is dependent on the operating conditions. A strong relationship between the contact pressure and material transfer has been observed. The severity of galling is lower for smoother surfaces at low contact pressure. However, at high contact pressure, the influence of roughness under these conditions is insignificant. It has also been observed that hard-tool steel substrates reduce the severity of galling, particularly, at high contact pressure.

Tribological properties of transition metal di-chalcogenide based lubricant coatings

Transition metal di-chalcogenides MX2 (X = S, Se, Te; and M= W, Mo, Nb, Ta) are one kind of solid lubricant materials that have been widely used in industry. The lubricant properties of such lubricant coatings are dependent not only on microstructure, orientation, morphology, and composition of the coatings, but also on the substrate, the interface between substrate and lubricant coatings, and the specific application environment. In this review, the effects of parameters on tribological properties of such kind of lubricant coatings were summarized. By comparing advantages and disadvantages of those coatings, the special treatments such as doping, structural modulation and post-treatment were suggested, aiming to improve the tribological performance under severe test conditions (e.g. high temperature, oxidizing atmosphere or humid condition).

Influence of service temperature on tribological characteristics of self-lubricant coatings: A review

Self-lubricating coatings have been widely used to reduce friction in moving machine assemblies. However, the tribological performance of these coatings is strongly dependent on the service temperature. In this paper, an extensive review pertaining to the influence of operating service temperature on tribological performance of self-lubricating coatings has been carried out. Based on the effective lubricating temperature range, the self-lubricating coatings developed in the past have been divided into three groups: low temperature lubricant coating (from −200°C to room temperature), moderate temperature lubricant coating (from room temperature to 500°C) and high temperature lubricant coating (> 500°C). Ideas concerning possible ways to extend the operating temperature range of self-lubricating coatings have been presented as follows: hybridized tribological coating, adaptive tribological coatings, and diffusion rate limited solid lubricant coating. In addition, a new self-lubricating coating formulation for potential application at a wide operating temperature range has been proposed.

High-temperature friction and wear characteristics of hardened ultra-high-strength boron steel:

Abstract The usage of ultra-high-strength boron steel (UHSS) in automotive industry has increased rapidly in the recent past. Forming of UHSS components is performed at elevated temperatures, which also offers the possibility of hardening through quenching directly after forming. However, the influence of hardening on friction and wear during relative sliding between the tool and the workpiece is unclear. Therefore, the friction and wear characteristics at elevated temperatures of hardened and unhardened UHSS and tool steel pairs are investigated in this study. The results show that both friction and wear at all the investigated temperatures are affected by hardening of the UHSS. For uncoated UHSS, the hardening resulted in lower friction and the tool wear increased at low temperatures, but was not affected at elevated temperatures. This was attributed to the higher hardness after hardening combined with the presence of an oxide scale on the UHSS after heating and quenching. For Al—Si-coated UHSS, the hardening reduced friction and tool steel wear at elevated temperatures, and also reduced the wear of the Al—Si-coated high-strength steel at low temperature mainly owing to the formation of an intermetallic layer on the Al—Si-coated UHSS surface after exposure to elevated temperatures.

High temperature friction and wear mechanism map for tool steel and boron steel tribopair

Abstract Tribological systems working under severe conditions like high pressures, sliding velocities and temperatures are subjected to different phenomena such as wear, oxidation and changes in mechanical properties. In many cases, there are several mechanisms occurring simultaneously. The predominating type(s) of wear mechanism(s) presented will depend on the materials in contact, operating parameters and surrounding environment. In this work, high temperature tribological studies of boron steel sliding against tool steel were conducted using a pin-on-disc machine under unlubricated conditions at five different temperatures ranging from 25 to 400°C, three different loads: 25, 50 and 75 N (contact pressures of 2, 4 and 6 MPa respectively) and a sliding speed of 0·2 ms−1. Scanning electron microscopy/energy dispersive spectroscopy and X-ray techniques were used for analysing the resulting damage and tribolayers of the worn surfaces. Additionally, hardness measurements were carried out in a special hot hardness rig in the same temperature range as that used in pin-on-disc tests. The results have shown that for a given load, the wear rate of boron steel decreased as the temperature increased, reaching its lowest value at 400°C at 50 N. In the case of the tool steel, it could be observed that at 200°C and above, the wear rate decreased as the load increased. This behaviour is consistent with the formation of a protective oxidised layer initiated at 100°C. At higher temperatures, such layers become more pronounced. The obtained data were finally used to construct a friction and wear mechanism map for this material pair that takes temperature and pressure into account.

High Temperature Tribological Studies on Surface Engineered Tool Steel and High Strength Boron Steel

The popularity of hot sheet metal forming processes in the recent years has necessitated research efforts to improve tool life and control the friction level during hot forming operations. In this work, the tribological properties of tool steel and ultra high strength boron steel (UHSS) pairs at elevated temperatures have been studied by using a special hot sheet metal forming test rig that closely simulates the conditions prevalent in the real process. This test involves linear unidirectional sliding of a preheated UHSS sheet between two tool steel specimens where new workpiece material is continuously in contact with the tool surface. The study is aimed at investigating different surface treatments/coatings applied on either the tool or sheet surface or on both. The results have shown that it is possible to control the coefficients of friction through surface treatments and coatings of the tool and workpiece materials. The application of a coating onto the sheet material has a greater influence on the friction compared to changing the tool steel surface. After running-in, the investigated tool steel variants show almost similar frictional behaviour when sliding against the same sheet material. Although coating the UHSS sheet reduces friction, it abrades the tool surface and also results in transfer of the sheet coating material to the tool surface.

The influence of initial surface topography on tribological performance of the wheel/rail interface during rolling/sliding conditions

Abstract The influence of surface roughness in a rail/wheel contact has been a concern for railway owners since the introduction of ‘rail grinding’ as a maintenance strategy. Presently, there are no well-defined guidelines regarding the surface topographies of ground rails and re-turned wheels. There is thus a need to establish scientific guidelines regarding the surface topographies for the rails and wheels in order to minimize grinding costs/time and to improve rail/wheel performance. This study is aimed at investigating the influence of surface topographies of wheels and rails on running-in behaviour, wear, friction, and the resultant surface damage through experimental simulation in the laboratory. A two-disc rolling/sliding test machine has been used in this experimental work. Two different roughness values were produced on both the rail and wheel test specimens. A design of experiment approach has been used to conduct experiments and to analyse the results. The results show that the surface roughness values of the specimens in some material pairs do influence wear, friction, and resulting surface damage.

Abrasive wear behaviour of hardened high strength boron steel

Abstract Abrasive wear in industrial applications such as mining, materials handling and agricultural machinery constitutes a large part of the total wear. Hardened high strength boron steels are known for their good wear resistance and mechanical properties, but available results in the open literature are scarce. This work aims at investigating how different quenching techniques affect the two-body abrasive wear resistance of hardened high strength boron steels. Furthermore, the wear as a function of depth in thicker hardened high strength boron steel plates has also been studied. The material characterisation has been carried out using microhardness, SEM/energy dispersive spectroscopy and three-dimensional optical surface profilometry. The results have shown that water quenched and tool quenched high strength boron steel had similar wear resistance. The main wear mechanisms appear to be microcutting combined with microfatigue. Workhardening during the abrasion process has been found to affect the abrasive wear.

Tribological properties of composite multilayer coating

Abstract The use of surface coatings is emerging as one of the most important approaches in reducing friction and wear in various tribological applications. Even though single layer coatings have a wide range of applications, the performance of the single layer alone may not always be adequate to meet the desired tribological property requirements. Hence, coatings consisting of multilayers to meet different property requirements in demanding applications are required. In this study, the tribological properties of a graded composite multilayer coating, with a specific layer sequence of MoS2/Ti–MoS2/TiBN–TiBN–TiB2–Ti deposited on tool steel substrate, have been investigated at temperatures of 40 and 400°C respectively. The experimental results from the tests at 40°C have shown that the friction coefficient value ranges between 0·02 and 0·034. It was found that the deposition parameters influenced the friction and durability of the coatings. Higher substrate bias was found to result in higher friction, and the coating deposited at high substrate bias and low N2 flow showed the lowest durability. The friction coefficient and durability of the coatings were found to be highly dependent on temperature. At high temperature, the friction coefficient increases almost threefold, and the durability decreases significantly.

Adhesion and tribological properties of TiTaBN coatings with a graded interlayer deposited by pulsed DC biased and continuous dc biased magnetron sputtering

The properties of TiBN-based coatings are significantly affected by adding alloying elements and coating parameters. Therefore, in this study, TiTaBN coatings with graded interlayer (CWGIL) were deposited on D2 steel substrates by pulsed DC biased (PDCB) and continuously DC biased (CDCB) closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (CFUBMS). The structural, mechanical, adhesion and tribological properties of the coatings were analysed with EDS, SEM, XRD, microhardness, scratch testing and a pin-on-disc tribo-tester (under various atmospheric conditions). TiTaBN CWGIL deposited by PDCB magnetron sputtering (MS) had a very dense microstructure, high hardness and a high critical load value. TiTaBN CWGIL deposited by PDCB MS had a lower friction coefficient, the wear rate and the penetration depth in all atmospheric conditions. In conclusion, the application of a PDCB substrate instead of a CDCB one dramatically increases the performance of CFUBMS-deposited TiTaBN coatings.