Wear behavior of nano-La2O3 dispersed ferritic ODS steel developed by spark plasma sintering

In the present study, the wear behavior of the Fe-14Cr-1Ti-1W-0.5L2O3 oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) steels has been reported. The ball-on-disc wear tester with SiC ball as counter surface was used to perform the wear tests. The effect of normal load (10 to 40 N with the interval of 10 N) on the wear behavior of the alloy has been investigated. Further, to understand the operative wear mechanism of the alloy, detailed microstructural and compositional analyses have also been carried out using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The highest width of wear track was obtained as 896 ± 78 µm at 40 N normal load. The wear rate of the alloy was found to increase from 4.54 ±0.12 × 10-6 mm3/m to 25.48 ±1.15 × 10-6 mm3/m with the normal load from 10 to 40 N at constant sliding velocity and distance. Moreover, the microstructure analyses of the worn surfaces, wear debris and counter surface have shown the prominent wear mechanism to be combination of adhesion, abrasion, oxidation and plastic deformation. Addition of lanthana was found to reduce the wear rate of ferritic steels.