Analysis of wear of a nitrided AISI H13 hot work tool steel in an aluminium hot extrusion process

The present work present experimental results of hot wear testing of AISI H13 tool steel with the aim of replicating the wear mechanisms occurring during hot extrusion process. The hot wear tests were carried out at a temperature of 550 °C and a sliding speed of 0.5 m/s for sliding distances of 1800, 3600 and 5400 m. A pin-on-disk test fixture was designed and fabricated to investigate the sliding between nitrided AISI H13 steel pins and 6063 aluminium alloy disks in a "flat surface-flat surface" conformal contact mode. The different characterisation techniques used (SEM/EDS, XRD) helped to better explain the complex wear mechanisms leading to surface degradation in the tribological couple. Graphitisation phenomenon caused by the dissolution of metastable iron carbide Fe3C was observed to occur after a sliding distance of 3600 m. In addition, coarsening, coalescence and tearing of carbides in the ultimate lower valleys of the degraded surface were observed to occur after 5400 m sliding distance. Nano-indentation technique was used to evaluate the cross-sectional hardness evolution of the nitrided layer, and results showed that the maximum value of hardness of 12.01 ± 0.63 GPa was obtained at the nearest point of the surface. Volume and surface parameters were used to characterise the surfaces before and after wear damage as function of sliding distance. The progressive variation and evolution of the peak material volume parameter (Vmp), core material volume (Vmc), core void volume (Vvc) and dale void volume (Vvv) parameters reached higher values after wear testing at 3600 m sliding distance indicating a synergy between different and complex wear mechanisms.