JOURNAL OF RARE EARTHS, Vol. 30, No. 1, Jan. 2012, P.

69

Effect of cerium on abrasive wear behaviour of hardfacing alloy

XING Shule (㸠㟦Ф), YU Shengfu (ԭ೷⫿), DENG Yu (䙧ᅛ), DAI Minghui (᠈ᯢ䕝), YU Lu (ԭ䴆)
(State Key Laboratory of Material Forming and Mould & Die Designing, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China)

Received 26 August 2011; revised 13 October 2011

Abstract: Hardfacing alloys with different amounts of ceria were prepared by self-shielded flux cored arc welding. The abrasion tests were
carried out using the dry sand-rubber wheel machine according to JB/T 7705-1995 standard. The hardness of hardfacing deposits was meas-
ured by means of HR-150AL Rockwell hardness test and the fracture toughness was measured by the indentation method. Microstructure
characterization and surface analysis were made using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and energy spectrum analy-
sis. The results showed that the wear resistance was determined by the size and distribution of the carbides, as well as by the matrix micro-
structure. The main wear mechanisms observed at the surfaces included micro-cutting and micro-ploughing of the matrix. The addition of
ceria improved the hardness and fracture toughness of hardfacing deposits, which would increase the resistance to plastic deformation and
scratch, thus the wear resistance of hardfacing alloys was improved.

Keywords: abrasive wear; carbides; rare earth oxides

Many machine components are applied to severe condi- In this paper, the Fe-Cr13-Mn-Nb hardfacing alloy of
tions for a long time[1], for instance, the hot roller and coal self-shielded hardfacing flux-cored wire was made and
shearer, whose failure mode is mainly abrasion. Hardfacing different amounts of ceria were added to the flux-cored
is a commonly employed treatment to increase hardness and wire, the investigation is aimed at understanding the effect
abrasive wear resistance of mining, oil, steel and many other of ceria on the abrasive wear behaviour of the hardfacing
industries[2]. The hardfacing alloys having excellent resis- alloy.
tance to wear and oxidation are deposited onto base metalsˈ
and there are lots of welding techniques to acquire hardfac-
1 Experimental
ing layers, such as shield manual arc welding (SMAW),
submerged arc welding (SAW), plasma arc welding (PAW), 1.1 Materials
oxyacetylene welding, etc.[3]. Self-shielded flux cored arc
The base material for the deposition of the hardfacing is
welding is one of the most popular hardfacing process be-
cause of its simple operation[4]. Q235 steel. The flux core powder is composed with mineral
The abrasive wear behaviour of a welding alloy depends powder and alloy powder. The mineral powder contains gas
and slag formers, the arc stabilizer, and the deoxidizers. And
on its chemical composition, the microstructure obtained af-
ter welding and the welding parameters. The hardfacing de- the alloy powder contains ferrochromium, ferromanganese,
posit formed by different welding processes and welding ferrosilicon, ferroniobium and nickle power. Table 1 gives
parameters presents different abrasive wear resistance[5]. Table 1 Flux compositions
Carbonitride alloying elements, such as Nb, V and Ti, can
Core powder Content/wt.%
produce much harder precipitation of carbonitride, and these
Fluorspar (CaF2) 5–8
carbonitride with high hardness and melting point can
Oxides (TiO2, ZrO2, MgO, SiO2) 18–23
strengthen the base metals and improve the wear resistance[1].
Potash feldspar (K2O·Al2O3·6SiO2) 2–5
Rare earth (RE) elements can refine and spheroidize the car-
Alloying element 51–61
bides[6–8], thus it is possible to further improve the wear re-
Deoxidizer (Si, Mn) 6–9
sistance of welding alloy by adding proper amount of RE
Ceria
elements. Some researches[9–11] also showed that the RE ele-
1# flux cored wire 0
ments have great influence on the fracture toughness and
2# flux cored wire 5
hardness of welding alloy. According to literature[12], im-
3# flux cored wire 10
proving the fracture toughness and hardness can greatly en-
Iron powder Balance
hance the wear resistance.

Foundation item: Project supported by the Doctoral Foundation of Ministry of Education of China (20090499)
Corresponding author: YU Shengfu (E-mail: 54814200@qq.com)
DOI: 10.1016/S1002-0721(10)60641-2
70 JOURNAL OF RARE EARTHS, Vol. 30, No. 1, Jan. 2012

the main compositions of the flux. The mass fractions of
ceria added into the flux cored wire were 0 wt.% (1#), 5
wt.% (2#), and 10 wt.% (3#), respectively. And the chemical
compositions of deposited metal are shown in Table 2. The
outer shell of the wire was made of low carbon steel strip of
H08A. The content of flux in the wire was 35%–40%, and
the diameter of the wire was 2.4 mm.
1.2 Methods
Three hardfacing flux cored wire with different amounts
of ceria were deposited on the base metal for five layers, re-
spectively. The welding parameters of the hardfacing alloys
are shown in Table 3. The final samples were cut out of the
deposition by linear cutting machine to avoid any heat effect
on the final overlay. The cross-section of the deposited layer
was polished and was etched using aqua regia. The micro-
structure of surfacing layers metal was studied by means of
Axiovert 200 MAT optical microscopy and scanning elec-
tron microscopy (JSM-5510LV).
The hardness of deposited metal was measured by means
of HR-150AL Rockwell hardness test (HRC). Five points
were measured and averaged, and their locations were ran-
domly selected on a standard surface (20 mm×10 mm) of
each sample. The fracture toughness was measured by the
indentation method with Vickers hardness tester. According
to the indentation crack length caused by Vickers hardness
tester, the fracture toughness (KIC) could be determined by
the following equation[13]:
H D E) 0.4 L –0.5
KIC=0.129 ( )( ) ( )
) H a 2 Results
where H is hardness (HV), E is elastic modulus (GPa),  is
half length of indentation diagonal (m), L is the indentation
crack length (m) and  is the limiting factor (3).
Table 2 Chemical compositions of deposited metal
Elements C Cr Ni
Content/wt.ˁ 0.15–0.17 11–13 1.4–1.6
Table 3 Welding technology parameters
Welding Welding Welding Interpass
Current/A voltage/V speed/(m/h) temperatures/º&
280–350 23–27 14–18 <200
The abrasive wear test was carried out using dry sand/
rubber wheel abrasion test apparatus, as displayed in Fig. 1.
The wear tests were performed with a standard JB/T
7705-1995. Rounded quartz particles were with mean di-
ameter between 212–425 m. The sample was fixed with a
specimen holder against the abrasive and the deposition sur-
face (25 mm×75 mm) of sample was the wear surface. The
normal loads, rate of revolution in the tests and wear dis-
tance for each sample were 130 N, 240 r/min and 1400 m,
respectively. A microbalance was used to weigh the speci-
mens before and after wear tests. The abrasive wear resis-
tance was determined by the mass loss results, which were
measured with 0.01 mg resolution. The abrasive pattern of
wear samples was observed by SEM.
Fig. 1 Dry sand/rubber wheel abrasion test apparatus
1-Sand hopper; 2-Sand; 3-Sand nozzle; 4-Steel disc; 5-Rubber rim;
6-Specimen holder; 7-Lever arm; 8-Weight
2.1 Microstructure and carbide precipitation of the
deposited metal
The microstructure features of two hardfacing alloys are
shown in Figs. 2 and 3. Fig. 2(a) shows the microstructures
Nb
of the hardfacing alloys without ceria, the major microstruc-
0.53–0.61
ture is coarse columnar crystal. Columnar crystal could also
be observed in Fig. 2(b), but the grain size of columnar crys-
tal is decreased obviously, which means that ceria has sig-
Electric cur-
nificant effect on the grain refinement of hardfacing alloys.
rent electrode
The SEM images and corresponding energy spectrum fig-
DCEP
ure of the hardfacing alloys without ceria are shown in

Fig. 2 Microstructures of hardfacing alloys without (a) and with (b) ceria
XING Shule et al., Effect of ceria on abrasive wear behaviour of hardfacing alloy 71

Fig. 3 SEM images and corresponding energy spectrum figure of the hardfacing alloys without (a, a’, c) and with (b, b’) ceria

Fig. 3(a, a’). There are two main phases in the hardfacing al-
loys, lath martensite and the residual austenite, and some
white dotted particles are distributed on the grain boundary or
the martensite matrix as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 3(c).
Fig. 3(b, b’) are the SEM image of deposited metal with ceria
and corresponding energy spectrum figure. Comparing with
the microstructure of hardfacing alloys without ceria, the size
of martensite lath decreases and the dotted particles are refined
obviously, and the dotted particles distribute more homoge-
neously when ceria is added as shown in Table 4. The average
size of particles without ceria and with ceria is respectively 6.5
and 3.9 μm. This also indicates that the particles are refined by
the ceria. According to the energy spectrum figure, the white
dotted particles are carbide of Nb.
2.2 Hardness and fracture toughness of the deposited metal
The results of hardness, fracture toughness and mass loss
for deposited metal with different amounts of ceria additions
are shown in Table 5. According to the results of section 2.1,
ceria can significantly refine the grain size of deposited
metal, and the precipitation of carbides becomes more ho-
mogeneous and diffuse, thus the hardness of deposited metal
is also improved due to the refinement of grain size. The ex-
perimental data are basically in accordance with the results
of analysis on the microstructures. When the amount of ceria
addition is up to 5%, the hardness of deposited metal reaches
a peak value, however, no significant change of hardness is
observed with the continuous increase of the amount of ceria
additions.
Microstructure refinement not only improves the hardness,
but also is beneficial to the fracture toughness. According to
ZumGahr[12], the fracture toughness and hardness are both
important parameters that can greatly enhance the wear re-
sistance. According to Table 5, the wear resistance of 3#
72 JOURNAL OF RARE EARTHS, Vol. 30, No. 1, Jan. 2012

Table 4 Relationship between size of particles and number of sample with ceria. These indicate that the abrasive particles
particles in deposited metal (µm) are more difficult to impress into the worn surface and slid-
Size of particles <2 2–5 5–8 >8 ing in Fig. 4(b), which means that the hardness of hardfacing
Proportion of particles Without ceria 0 23.1 46.2 30.7 alloys with ceria is higher than that of the samples without
with different sizes With ceria 13.3 66.7 20 0 ceria. It is the main reason for the situation that the resistance
of dislocation slipping becomes bigger with the grain re-
Table 5 Hardness, fracture toughness and mass loss for deposited finement and the precipitation of fine and homogeneous car-
metal with different amounts of ceria additions bides protect the matrix from being cut by the abrasive parti-
No. Hardness (HRC) KIC/(MPa·m1/2) Mass loss/mg cles. Grain refinement also improves the fracture toughness,
#
1 (0) 43.6 33 287 which means the resistance of plastic deformation increased,
2# (5%) 45.5 40 161 so that the amount of spalling lips and prows caused by de-
3# (10%) 45.2 46 120 creased microplugging. Thus the wear resistance of hardfac-
ing alloys is improved by adding ceria.
sample is improved obviously, but the hardness of 3# sample
is equal to 2# sample, thus the increase of fracture toughness 4 Conclusions
for 3# sample should be the main reason for the improvement
of hardness in this condition. (1) The hardfacing alloys microstructure in this research
were composed of lath martensite, residual austenite and
dotted carbides. With the addition of ceria, the size of co-
3 Abrasive wear behaviour lumnar crystal was refined and carbides were distributed
The typical aspect of the worn surfaces is shown in Fig. more homogeneously in the matrix.
4(a) and 4(b). Micro-cutting and micro-ploughing are the (2) With the addition of ceria, the hardness and fracture
main abrasive micro-mechanisms observed in Fig. 4. It is toughness of hardfacing alloys were improved, because the
observed that the depth of groove caused by micro-cutting in resistance of dislocation slipping became bigger with the re-
the direction of sliding on the worn surface in Fig. 4(a) is finement of microstructure.
obviously deeper than that in Fig. 4(b). And the number of (3) The wear resistance of hardfacing alloys with ceria
abrasive dust of the sample without ceria is more than the was improved. Micro-cutting and micro-ploughing were the
main abrasive micro-mechanisms. The improvement of
hardness could decrease the depth of groove caused by mi-
cro-cutting, meanwhile, the improvement of fracture tough-
ness could increase the resistance to plastic deformation and
scratch, so that the amount of spalling lips and prows caused
by microplugging was decreased. thus the wear resistance of
hardfacing alloys was improved.

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