Erosive wear resistance evaluation with the hardness after strain-hardening and its application for a high-entropy alloy

Hardness has been regarded as a primary parameter for the wear resistance evaluation of metals for a long time. However, because of work-hardening induced by wear, sometimes there is a big difference between the actual wear resistance and the evaluation with the original hardness (H1). So an experimental hardness test after strain-hardening was suggested, and the effect of this experimental hardness on the evaluation of erosive wear resistance was investigated. Based on the slurry erosion tests of 8 kinds of metals under 90° impingement, a significant positive linear correlation between the erosive wear resistance and the ratio of strain-hardened hardness (H2) and compressive elastic modulus (E) was obtained. And the correlation coefficient (R2) between the value of erosive wear resistance and H2/E ratio increases from 0.61 to 0.89 when the original hardness is substituted by the strain-hardened hardness. Furthermore, the erosive wear resistance of AlCrFeCoNiCu HEA was evaluated by the empirical expression and the difference between the experimental and predicted values is less than 10%. Therefore, the proposed evaluation method with the strain-hardened hardness is practical and effective for the erosive wear resistance evaluation of a candidate metallic material.