Tribological properties of oxidised boride coatings grown on AISI 4140 steel

In this study, we investigated the wear behaviour of borided and borided + short-duration oxidized AISI 4140 steel. Boronizing was carried out in a slurry salt bath consisting of borax, boric acid and ferro silicon. Also, short-duration oxidizing treatment was applied to borided steel to produce glass-like boron oxide layer. The short-duration oxidizing was performed at 750 °C for 3 min. Optical and scanning electron microscope (SEM) cross-sectional examinations of borided layer revealed a needle-shaped morphology. The presence of non-oxide boride type ceramics FeB and Fe2B formed on the surface of steel substrate was confirmed by classical metallographic technique and X-ray diffraction (XRD) analysis. The hardness of borides formed on the surface of steel substrate and unborided steel substrate were 1446–1690 HV0.1 and 280 HV0.1, respectively. The wear behaviour of borided steel were characterised by using a pin-on-disc technique. The borided and short-duration oxidized steels, in the form of pins were allowed to slide against a hard AISI 440C stainless steel disc (63 HRc). The sliding velocity of 1 m s− 1 for borided and short-duration oxidized steel and the nominal load on the pin was 20 N. The highest wear rates were observed on disc slide against the base steel, whilst the lowest wear rates occurred during sliding against the borided and short-duration oxidized steel surfaces. It was observed that the friction coefficient of unborided (hardened + tempered) and borided steels ranged from 0.50 to 0.60, but after short-duration oxidizing, the friction coefficient of borided steel was dropped to 0.12.