Effects of Rare Earth Metal Addition on Wear Resistance of Chromium-Molybdenum Cast Steel

This paper discusses changes in the microstructure and abrasive wear resistance of G17CrMo5-5 cast steel modified with rare earth metals (REM). The changes were assessed using scanning microscopy. The wear response was determined in the Miller test to ASTM G75. Abrasion tests were supplemented with the surface profile measurements of non-modified and modified cast steel using a Talysurf CCI optical profilometer. It was demonstrated that the modification substantially affected the microstructure of the alloy, leading to grain size reduction and changed morphology of non-metallic inclusions. The observed changes in the microstructure resulted in a three times higher impact strength (from 33 to 99 kJ/cm2) and more than two times higher resistance to cracking (from 116 to 250 MPa). The following surface parameters were computed: Sa: Arithmetic mean deviation of the surface, Sq: Root-mean-square deviation of the surface, Sp: Maximum height of the peak, Sv: Maximum depth of the valley, Sz: Ten Point Average, Ssk: Asymmetry of the surface, Sku: Kurtosis of the surface. The findings also indicated that the addition of rare earth metals had a positive effect on the abrasion behaviour of G17CrMo5-5 cast steel.