Experimental Investigations of Tribological Behavior on Austempered Ductile Iron

Abstract

This thesis reports on the research dealing with dry sliding wear behavior of two newlinecategories of Austempered Ductile Irons (ADI) at room and elevated temperature operating newlineconditions. Currently there is a lot of enthusiasm for the wear of metals and materials all newlinethrough the world. Propelled wear safe materials with low rubbing co-efficients are being newlineresearched for different applications. Metals and composites that are light in weight having newlinesuitable mechanical and tribological properties with minimal effort have appeal. This newlineprompted the improvement of one of the high quality material known as Austempered Ductile newlineIron. ADIs have good fatigue resistance with favorable ductility, hardness, toughness and are newlinewear resistant. newlineThe first part of the thesis emphasizes on the importance of the austempering process newlineon Ductile Iron (DI). A comparison of wear behavior of DI and ADI is made to quantify the newlineincrease in wear resistance. The development and validation of the regression model was newlinealso dealt with. A Taguchi approach was utilized in the analysis of the results. The second newlinepart deals the study of wear behavior at elevated temperature for varying speeds and loads. newlineThe behavior at elevated temperature is compared with the wear behavior at room newlinetemperature. The hardness and its profile have been studied to understand the work newlinehardening effects. The heat flux, surface temperature and flash temperature have been newlinecalculated to understand its variation in influencing the response. Scanning Electron newlineMicroscopy analysis of worn out surfaces was additionally completed to understand the newlinepredominant wear mechanisms under the influence of load, speed and temperature. The third newlinepart throws light on the optimization of control factors with temperature as one of the newlineinfluencing parameter. A regression model for the calculation of response was developed and newlinevalidated. The fourth part has shown the comparative wear behavior of two categories of newlineADIs for varying sliding distances. The last part of the thesis dealt with the developmen