Investigation of wear behavior and characterization of borided AISI D6 steel

In the present study, effect of the boriding process on wear behavior and surface characterization of AISI D6 steel has been investigated. It is intended extending the lifetime of AISI D6 steel with increasing the wear resistance with the boriding treatment. The boride layer was characterized by optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction technique and the micro-Vickers hardness tester. X-ray diffraction analysis of boride layers on the surface of the steels revealed the existence of FeB, Fe2B, CrB and Cr2B compounds. Depending on the chemical composition of substrates, the boride layer thickness on the surface of the AISI D6 steel was found to be 164.42 μm. The hardness of the boride compounds formed on the surface of the steels ranged from 1672 to 2118 HV0,05, whereas Vickers hardness values of the untreated the steels was 584 HV0,05. The wear tests were carried out in a ball-disc arrangement under a dry friction condition at room temperature with an applied load of 10N and with a sliding speed of 0.3 m/sec at a sliding distance of 1000m. It was observed that the wear rate of borided and unborided AISI D6 steel ranged from 1.28x10-6 to 81.2 x10-6 mm3/Nm.