The friction-induced microstructures changes of 18Cr-8Ni austenitic stainless steels with different grain sizes

Abstract The friction and wear performance, wear morphology and friction-induced subsurface microstructural characteristics of 18Cr-8Ni austenitic stainless steels with coarse-grained (CG), heterogeneous ultrafine-grained (HUFG), and nano/ultrafine-grained (NG/UFG) microstructures after dry sliding wear under room temperature were studied. The results reveal that HUFG steel with a good match between hardness and plasticity exhibits the best wear performance, followed by CG steel, while NG/UFG steel with the highest hardness exhibits the poorest wear performance. From the element distribution map, the contents of O and Si in the delamination and wear debris are relatively high. O is relatively evenly distributed on the whole wear surface of HUFG steel, and there is a continuous oxide layer on its wear surface. After the wear test, the hardness increment near the wear surface of the CG sample is the largest, and the depth affected by sliding is the largest, followed by the HUFG sample, and those of the NG/UFG steel are the smallest. The repeated frictional shear stress causes the formation of cracks between the mechanical mixed layer and the plastic deformation layer, and the continuous expansion of cracks can help oxygen elements diffuse deeply, causing the deformation layer materials to fall off.