Enhancing the Abrasive Wear Resistance of Rotary Blade Material (AISI 30MnCrB4) by Cryogenic Treatment

Abstract

The present study investigates the abrasion wear behaviour of AISI 30MnCrB4 boron steel rotavator blades heat treated under conventional heat treatment (CHT) and deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) processes. For conventional heat treatment, the boron steel blades were oil quenched from 820˚C followed by tempering at 200˚C. However, the deep cryogenic treatment was carried out at -196˚C followed by the controlled heating at 2˚C/min to room temperature for a soaking time of 10 hours. The abrasion wear performance of the treated steels was carried out using dry sand rubber wheel (DSRW) test rig under different wear testing conditions using loam sand and sandy loam sand. The experimental results revealed that after deep cryogenic treatment the wear resistance of the boron steel is improved by 26.47 % and 24.07 % for loam sand and sandy loam sand respectively as compared to the conventionally heat treated steel.