High temperature tribological behaviour of tool steels during sliding against aluminium

Soldering and abrasive wear of die-casting tools are some of the biggest problems facing the aluminium die-casting industry. The understanding of the tribological behaviour is crucial to design new tool steels and tool steel-coating systems. The present study aims at investigating aluminium adhesion of aluminium/tool steel pair, performing sliding tests at high temperature with ball-on-disc configuration to reproduce solid/solid interaction. Different test conditions have been conducted in order to select the optimal test parameters to obtain aluminium adhesion on disc surface. Once the lab test has been designed, the high temperature tribological performance of different hot work tool steels (uncoated and coated by PVD) sliding against aluminium has been studied to allow proper die material design and selection.

► Design of a test to evaluate the tribological behaviour of aluminium/tool steel pair at high temperature.
► Aiming to reproduce aluminium adhesion on HPDC tools, one of the main tool damaging mechanisms.
► A strong effect of the tool steel material in wear mechanism was observed.
► HTCS samples (uncoated and CrN coated) show lower aluminium adhesion compared to DIN 1.2344.