Disquisition on material parameters and their influence on wear rates at high temperatures

The aim of this work is to find correlations of hard phase content and matrix type with hot hardness and wear rates in the cyclic impact abrasion test at high testing temperatures. Several materials with different matrix types and varying hard phase content have been investigated regarding their wear behaviour as well as their hot hardness up to 800°C. The hot hardness and hard phase content then was correlated to the wear rates using statistical methods. Materials with comparable matrix properties and higher hard phase content always have higher hot hardness and these parameters are statistically dependent so correlation of wear rate with hot hardness is statistically sufficient. It was found, that within the same material the wear rate is correlated to the hot hardness as long as there is no significant change in the wear mechanism. When the matrix of the material changes the hot hardness can not be directly correlated to the wear rate any more. It was also found that among all materials tested those with an austenitic matrix generally have higher wear resistance even if they have the same hot hardness