Wear resistance of steel bonded wc hardfacing layer prepared by plasma arc technique

An in situ investigation has been carried out to assess the wear resistance of a steel bonded WC hardfacing layer prepared by the plasma arc technique. The atomised alloy steel powder used for the bond in steel bonded WC was first reduced using hydrogen to lower the oxygen content in the powder, and WC powder was then mixed with the reduced powder. The resulting powder mixture was introduced into the plasma arc under an argon atmosphere to form a hardfacing layer with a thickness of 1–3 mm on a carbon steel surface. The morphologies of the hardfacing powder and the hardfacing layer were examined with an optical microscope and SEM, and analysed by EDAX and XRD. In addition, the antiwear performance of the hardfacing layer was compared with AISI E52100 and AISI W108 special tool steels. The experimental results show that steel bonded WC can be successfully applied to a mild steel surface using the plasma arc technique. The hardness of the layer was up to 61–63 HRC and the layer had high wear resistance.