Oxidation effects on wear resistance of SS-304 and SS-316 austenitic stainless steels

Abstract

Present manuscript deals with the sliding wear behaviour of SS-304 and SS-316 with and without oxidation prior to wear test. The dry sliding wear performance of the steel samples was noted in as received conditions and then after oxidizing the sample at 600°C for 6 hours. The variations in hardness of both the steels before and after oxidation were estimated. The dry sliding wear tests were carried out using pin on disk technique at different sliding velocity and different loads, by using hardened steels counter surface. The worn surfaces were characterised by using FE-SEM/EDS analysis to ascertain the mechanism of wear in the samples. From various characterisation results and observations of volume loss, the effect of prior oxidation was analysed for the both stainless steels. It has been found that the oxidation leads to the formation of some protective oxides which leads to increase in the hardness of the samples due to which the wear performance was improved compared to the as received alloys.