Ni-Cu Alloyed Austempered Ductile Iron Resistance to Multifactorial Wear

The paper provides a discussion on the results of studies of the effect exerted by combined degradation factors typical of four types of wear: abrasion, impact–abrasion, tribocorrosion, and impact–abrasion–corrosion, conducted for chain wheels made of Ni-Cu alloyed austempered ductile iron. The studies consisted of determining the content of retained austenite in the structure of the cast irons in question, establishing the measures of wear following wear testing, and identifying the basic surface degradation mechanisms observed in the chain wheels tested following multifactorial wear processes. The chain wheels made of ADI were found to have sustained the greatest damage under the impact–abrasion–corrosion (three-factor) wear scenario, while the wear was least advanced in the abrasion (one-factor) wear case. Another observation derived from the studies is that the combined effect of dynamic forces, corrosion, and quartz sand-based abrasives causes increased surface degradation in the cast iron grades taken into consideration compared to processes characterised by a reduced number of degradation factors (i.e., one- or two-factor wear processes). Additional hardness tests and XRD analyses revealed that a distinctive effect attributable to combined degradation factors on the surface hardness increased value and implied that bench testing was followed by phase transition.