Comparison of Softening Behavior and Abrasive Wear Resistance between Conventionally and Additively Manufactured Tool Steels
Journal article, 2024

Directed energy deposition (DED) is a powerful method for hard-facing the existing tool components. Herein, three tool steel grades including a newly developed maraging steel (NMS), a cold work tool steel (V4E), and a high boron steel (HBS) are cladded on a hot work tool steel substrate. After tempering, the cladded tool steels are exposed to high temperatures at 600, 700, and 800 °C for 3 h to evaluate their softening resistance. The results show that all three tool steel grades have a significant hardness drop when the softening temperature reaches 700 °C. The investigated NMS has the lowest initial hardness in the tempered state but the best softening resistance. In contrast, HBS has the highest initial hardness but the worst softening resistance among the three steel grades. V4E tool steel has a moderate softening resistance compared to the other two steel grades. The factors contributing to the softening resistance have been discussed. Corresponding conventional tool steels are also adapted as references for comparison. Except for the NMS, the additive manufacturing tool steel samples have a better softening resistance than the conventional counterparts owing to more alloying elements trapped in the matrix. The abrasive wear resistance of the tempered and softened tool steels manufactured by DED and conventional methods is also evaluated and the wear mechanism is discussed. Besides the hardness, the free spacing λ between coarse hard particles is one of the major factors influencing the abrasive wear resistance.

tool steel

directed energy deposition

wear resistance

softening resistances

Author

Miwen Yuan

Central South University

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Lars Nyborg

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Christos Oikonomou

Uddeholms

Yicheng Fan

Ltd.

Libin Liu

Central South University

Jason Weijiang Ye

Voestalpine High Performance Metals Pacific Pte Ltd

Emmy Cao

Chalmers, Industrial and Materials Science, Materials and manufacture

Steel Research International

1611-3683 (ISSN) 1869344x (eISSN)

Vol. 95 6 2300577

Subject Categories

Tribology

Manufacturing, Surface and Joining Technology

Metallurgy and Metallic Materials

Areas of Advance

Production

DOI

10.1002/srin.202300577

More information

Latest update

6/15/2024