The phenomenon of wear damage is closely related to the concept of friction,

which is a resisting force that arises in the direction parallel to the plane where two
bodies are in contact and try to slide over each other, as a result of the interaction
between the micro asperities of the surfaces. When there is relative movement between
the bodies, and so, sliding, fragments of the bodies’ surfaces are detached, which
characterizes the wear damage, that results in poor working tolerances and, in the
ultimate case, an eventual failure. A way to reduce the wear damage and the high power
associated with sliding is to employ lubricants in the contact region. To improve the
wear resistance is to enhance the hardness of the material. Some applications, like for
tools in fabrication process (machining, cutting, forming and die casting), require
materials with high wear resistance, due to the physics associated to the processes,
which means having a high and constant hardness at low and high temperatures as the
most important attribute. The tool steels were developed then specifically for those
applications, showing also other properties that are required for tools, like high
compressive strength, fatigue strength, toughness and corrosion resistance.

Firstly, the concept of wear must be clearly understood. There are two kinds of
wear:

 Adhesive wear: when the adhesion between the two materials that are in contact
is good enough, wear fragments are removed from the softest material or from
both when their hardness is similar. Those fragments can either go away or get
trapped between the surfaces, which results in the next wear mechanism. The
higher the contact area between the surfaces, the higher will be the rate of wear.
This area can be decreased by increasing the yield strength of the material,
which is accomplished by increasing its hardness.
 Abrasive wear: the wear fragments produced by adhesive wear and also the
eventually incorporated dirt particles pierce the surfaces to different depths,
leading to plastic deformation and loss of material. The higher the hardness of
the material’s surface, the lower will be the capability of those particles to pierce
the surfaces.

The tool steels are steels with carbon and elements like molybdenum, chromium,
vanadium and tungsten, that present a high affinity with carbon and form fine dispersed
carbides during tempering, that improve the strength of the tempered martensite. The
tempering temperature influence in the hardness of the material can follow different
behaviours, accordingly to the class of the tool steel. Namely, there are four classes of
tool steels, characterized and graphically illustrated below:

 Class 1: carbon and low-alloy steels. They experience a progressive decrease in

the hardness with the tempering temperature due to the precipitation and
coarsening of a brittle structure made of iron and carbon called cementite, or
other low-alloy carbides.
 Class 2: medium to high-alloy cold-working die steels. The alloying additions
retard the carbide precipitation and the associated softening.
 Class 3: high-alloy high-speed steels. A secondary hardening occurs at high
tempering temperatures, as a result of the transformation of the retained
austenite to martensite and the precipitation of ultrafine dispersed alloy carbides.
 Class 4: medium to high-alloy hot-working tool steels. They also exhibit a
secondary hardening like the Class 3 tool steels, but with a lower as-quenched
hardness.

Tool steels can also be classified accordingly to their applications:

 Steels for plastic molds: the formation of plastics requires the die to be resistant
to high temperatures (250 °C) and pressures (100 MPa). Because of that, for
those steels, hardness retention and strength are less important, and the greatest
importance is given to having high machinability properties and a low degree of
distortion in hardening.
 Steels for high-pressure die casting molds: the die casting requires the tools to
be resistant to even higher temperatures, to high mechanical forces and also
erosion. In this case, hardness retention at high temperatures is of major
importance, but also good toughness and wear resistance are important
attributes, which is the case of steels with secondary hardening like those of
class 4.
 Steels for cold-forming tools and machining: the cold-forming processes (cold
rolling, deep drawing, extrusion, etc) require the tools to be capable of handling
the high stresses (due to pressure and friction) and local high temperatures (due
to abrasive wear). The important attributes now are hardness, abrasive wear
resistance and having a good hardness at high temperatures, for not prolonged
time.
 Steels for hot working: forging hammers and hot extrusion dies require the
tools to have a good toughness like those for high-pressure die casting molds,
with some differences in the chemical composition.