FRICTION AND WEAR BEHAVIOUR OF BORIDED AISI 304 STAINLESS STEEL WITH NANO PARTICLE AND MICRO PARTICLE SIZE OF BORIDING AGENTS

Abstract

In this study, AISI 304 stainless steel was subjected to solid bonding treatment with 10-50 nm particle size Nanoboron and commercially EKabor 3 powders. Processes were carried out at temperatures of 1223 and 1273 K for 2 and 4 h of treatment. Friction and wear behaviour of the samples bonded with different sizes of bonding agents has been examined. Wear experiments were performed by reciprocating a sliding wear test at dry conditions. After the wear tests, wear track area, wear track volume and wear rate were calculated based on the surface of the worn materials. The samples bonded with EKabor 3 and Nanoboron powder showed 5 and 8 times higher wear resistance than non-bonded AISI 304 stainless steel, respectively. Bonded steel samples were characterised by optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), microhardness and X-ray diffraction analyses (XRD). Metallographic studies showed that the boride layers have a flat and smooth morphology both in the AISI 304 steel and the boron powder. The thickness and hardness of the boride layer measured between the ranges of 23-33 mu m in thickness, 1020-1264 HV0.01 for EKabor 3 and 49-67 mu m, 1880-2200 HV0.01 for boron nano-particles, depend on the bonding time and temperature.