A Study of the Three-Body Abrasive Wear Resistance of 5V/5Nb-5Cr-5Mo-5W-5Co-Fe Multicomponent Cast Alloys with Different Carbon Percentages

Since it is well known in the literature that transition metals can form extremely hard carbides and effectively strengthen a material’s matrix, recently, some of them, such as V, Nb, Cr, Mo, and W, have been simultaneously added to cast iron. In addition, it is common to add Co to cast iron to strengthen the material’s matrix. However, the wear resistance of cast iron can also be considerably affected by the addition of C, which is rarely discussed in the literature by the experts. Therefore, the effect of C content (1.0; 1.5; 2.0 wt.%) on the abrasive wear behavior of 5 wt.% V/Nb, Cr, Mo, W, and Co alloys was investigated in this study. An evaluation was conducted using a rubber wheel abrasion testing machine in accordance with ASTM G65 with silica sand (1100 HV; 300 μm) as abrasive particles. The results show that plural carbides (MC, M(2)C, and M(7)C3) precipitated on the microstructure of the material, which is not unlike the behavior of other types of carbides as the quantity of C increases. The hardness and wear resistance properties of 5V-5Cr-5Mo-5W-5Co-Fe and 5Nb-5Cr-5Mo-5W-5Co-Fe multicomponent cast alloys increased as the quantity of C increased. However, we observed no significant difference in the hardness between the two materials with the same C additions, while 5Nb presented better wear resistance properties compared to the 5V sample due to the larger size of NbC compared to VC. Therefore, it can be determined that, in this study, the size of the carbide plays a more important role than its volume fraction and hardness.