DYNAMICAL ANALYSIS OF THE WEAR BEHAVIOR OF STEELS DURING THE PENDULUMSINGLE-PARTICLE GOUGING WEAR TESTS

The pendulum single particle gouging wear test and the concept of spec ific wear energy have proved to be very useful in impact wear studies and materials selection. However, to obtain a specific wear energy-wea r loss curve, the e-V curve, quite a number of grooving tests usually have to be conducted. In this study, a new method has been introduced to obtain an e-V curve from only one grooving event. In this method, t he dynamical variations in the forces acting on the specimens during f ormation of a wear debris chip were measured using load transducers an d recorded onto a microcomputer from which the wear energy could be ca lculated. The corresponding variations in wear volume along the cresce nt wear scars formed were measured using a profilometer. The above dat a were combined to calculate the e-V relationship. The wear behaviour of Hadfield steel, 18-8 type stainless steel and martensitic steel was investigated using this technique. The variations in dynamic hardness and the fraction of material removed from the substrate along the wea r grooves were also determined. General agreement between the e-V curv es from the single-grooving-event tests and the multi-grooving-event t ests was observed. It was shown that the specific wear energy, the rem oval fraction, and the dynamic hardness are all asymmetric relative to the centre of the wear groove in the grooving direction. This asymmet ry is mainly due to the frictional heating effect during the grooving process. The single-grooving-event test can provide much more informat ion than the multi-grooving-event method.