The sliding wear behaviour of steels with the same hardness

Abstract The purpose of this investigation was to determine whether steels of equal hardness but different compositions and microstructures would exhibit the same lubricated sliding wear behaviour. Experiments were conducted using a block-on-ring configuration (ASTM G77) with SAE 67 bronze blocks as the slider specimen, and three steels (AISI 5160, AISI 1045 and AISI O1) as the rings, with a constant sliding speed of 0.13 m/s, initial contact pressure of 8.14 MPa, and mineral oil lubricant. The same hardness condition avoids its effect on sliding wear and allows one to study the role of yield stress ( σ y ), the strain hardening coefficient (n), and microstructure. The results showed an interesting relation between the yield stress, microstructure and wear coefficient. The abovementioned relations are discussed.