Effect of Temperature on Wear Characteristic of Cast Iron

Conventional Fe-C-Si alloy cast iron shows good properties at low temperature but at high temperature its properties decrease very sharply. So, to protect this behaviour of cast iron, Si was replaced by Al, since both elements have similar graphitizing effect. In the present study, two types of cast iron, Fe-C-Si and Fe-C-Al, were cast in cold set resin bonded sand mould. After casting, the microstructures were studied using standard metallographic techniques. The wear tests were conducted using “CSM High Temperature Tribometer” following pin-on-disk method at 25 °C, 100 °C, 200 °C and 300 °C. The worn tracks were characterized using optical profilometer, SEM etc.. The results show that abrasive type wear was observed in both types of cast iron and always the Fe-C-Al cast has low wear rate compared to Fe-C-Si. However, after at 100 °C temperature, the wear resistance of Fe-C-Si cast iron starts to decrease whereas at lower temperature, it remains almost unchanged. The wear rates for Fe-C-Si alloy cast iron are 12.42, 16.51, 46.75 and 98.87x10-5mm³/N/m whereas the wear rates for Fe-C-Al cast iron are 3.32, 4.23, 4.40 and 8.15x10-5mm³/N/m at 25 °C, 100 °C, 200 °C and 300 °C, respectively.