Wear 267 (2009) 441448

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Wear
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Wear mechanisms experienced by a work roll grade high speed steel under
different environmental conditions
N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca , W.M. Rainforth
IMMPETUS, Department of Engineering Materials, The University of Shefeld, Mappin St., Shefeld S1 3JD, UK

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: High speed steels are used for the manufacture of hot mill work rolls. The rolls suffer a variety of degrada-
Received 31 August 2008 tion mechanisms, of which abrasive wear and thermal fatigue are the most understood. However, what
Received in revised form 14 January 2009 is less well characterised is the role that oxidation contributes to the deterioration of the roll surface.
Accepted 14 January 2009
In particular, the roll surface undergoes rapid thermal cycles (possibly up to 650 C in one roll rotation),
and is subjected to a high humidity environment, and of course, signicant cyclic contact stresses. In this
Keywords:
work, the relationship between the friction and wear of a work roll grade high speed steel (1.55% C, 7.70%
High speed steel
Cr, 4.90% V, 2.00% Mo) and oxidation was investigated at 400, 500 and 600 C for two different environ-
Work rolls
Oxidational wear
mental conditions (water, both gaseous and liquid, and laboratory dry air). A rolling-sliding disc on disc
Metallic wear conguration was employed with a 25 N load for a sliding distance of 111 km. The specic wear rate of
the high speed steel discs was greater for the tests conducted in laboratory dry air compared to the tests
with the presence of water. However, the specic wear rate of the dry tests was strongly temperature
dependent, while for the wet tests, the wear rate was insensitive to temperature. The dry tests exhibited
a combination of metallic and oxidational wear, while the wet tests were almost entirely oxidational,
with a different oxide phase constitution to the dry tests. Surprisingly, the wet tests exhibited higher
friction compared to the wet tests. The reasons for this and the difference in wear rates are discussed and
related to the phase constitution of the oxide layer and the amount of oxide formed in each experimental
condition.
2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction incidents occur. This promotes sliding wear, dominated by oxida-

High speed steels are increasingly becoming the material of
choice for the work rolls in steel hot rolling mills. The work rolls
experience severe conditions through a number of degradation
mechanisms, namely thermally related effects, abrasive wear and
wear mechanisms arising from relative slip between roll and work
piece. The steel work piece temperature, in contact with the roll, is
typically at 1200 C resulting in peak surface temperatures of the
roll of up to 650 C [1,2]. However, the roll is water cooled such
that a substantial thermal cycle is experienced on each roll rota-
tion. Thus, thermal fatigue is a major source of roll degradation.
The work piece is inevitably covered in an oxide layer. Much of this
is blasted off by water jets just prior to entry into the roll gap. This
results in a substantial volume of loose oxide debris which becomes
entrapped in the interface between roll and work piece, resulting in
abrasive wear. Slippage between the work roll and the work piece
is usually small (a few%) but can reach up to around 5% where mill
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 114 222 5469; fax: +44 114 222 5943.
E-mail addresses: n.f.garza@shefeld.ac.uk (N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca),
m.rainforth@shefeld.ac.uk (W.M. Rainforth).
tional wear. The various degradation mechanisms not only limit
the life of the roll surface before a re-grind is required, but also
impinge on the surface quality obtained on the work piece surface.
Thus, these degradation mechanisms contribute signicantly to the
nal cost of the product [3].
The surface of worn work rolls is dominated by oxide products,
which have been analysed by a few workers. Kato et al. [4] pro-
posed that the formation of a dark oxide layer on the surface of high
chromium iron work rolls was benecial in that it offered protection
against wear, but they did not dene the composition and charac-
teristics of this layer. A similar observation was also proposed by
Spuzic et al. [3] who observed the formation of a layer of magnetite
Fe3 O4 on the surface of cast steel work rolls, and demonstrated
that it was responsible of reducing friction and wear, in agreement
with Choi and Kim [5]. Erickson and Hogmark [6] considered that
wear of work rolls can be strongly correlated with the adhesion and
strength of the oxide scale that builds up on the surface. Roden-
burg and Rainforth [7] pointed out that the exact role of the oxide
depended on the thickness of the oxide scale relative to the carbides
within the substrate, which perhaps explains why there is not com-
plete agreement on whether oxides are always benecial in these
circumstances. Finally, Hanlon and Rainforth [8] showed that, while

0043-1648/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wear.2009.01.048
442 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448
Table 1
Chemical composition of the high speed steel used for the experiments.
Alloying elements in wt%
Steel C W Mo Cr V Si
HSS 1.55 0.49 2.08 7.70 4.90 0.66
the oxide might be benecial in the wear mechanisms, the oxide
growth penetrated from the surface into the material preferentially
at the carbide matrix interface, giving routes of easy crack initiation
(from thermal fatigue stresses), resulting in surface spalling.
One of the key issues that has not been addressed by the pub-
lished literature is the role of the water. In the true industrial
environment, the work roll and work piece are ooded with water.
While much of this will be vapourised before in enters the roll gap,
it clearly has a major inuence on the tribological conditions within
during rolling and the oxidation behaviour of the work roll as it goes
through the rapid thermal cycles. Accordingly, the current work
specically looks at the inuence that water has on the wear mech-
anisms and the friction behaviour during the hot testing of a high
speed steel. The test temperatures chosen were specically to repli-
cate the upper and lower bounds of the highest temperature that
the high speed steel work roll would achieve during the rotation
cycle. A wear rig was specically modied for this work in order to
try and simulate, as closely as possible, the conditions found in a
hot mill.
2. Experimental procedure
The chemical composition of the steel studied is shown in
Table 1.
The steel was cast by Shefeld Forgemasters under conditions
that would replicate the microstructure of a commercial work roll.
The high speed steel was heat treated in accordance with the stan-
dard commercial heat treatment cycle known to impart optimum
wear properties. The microstructure comprised a net of eutectic
carbides including MC vanadium rich carbides, M7 C3 chromium
rich carbides and M6 C molybdenum rich carbides dispersed in a
tempered martensitic matrix (Fig. 1).
The wear behaviour of the high speed steel was assessed using a
high temperature Cameron-Plint multipurpose wear rig in a rolling-
sliding disc on disc conguration (Fig. 2). Test discs of 60 mm
diameter and 16 mm thickness were cut to the nal shape by
spark erosion. The contact track of the discs was carefully pol-
Fig. 1. Microstructure of the high speed steel work rolls.
Mn Ni
0.54 0.52
Fig. 2. Schematic representation of the rig used for the rolling-sliding experiments.
ished to obtain an initial surface roughness Ra of approximately
0.40 0.20 m. The counter disc for the tests was made of a M2
tool steel and had the same dimensions of the test disc, the only
difference being that the contact track had a crowned prole.
The rig was modied to allow the introduction of both water and
water vapour during the tests introduced via two nozzles located
near to test disc (Fig. 2). For the dry tests, neither nozzle was used.
For wet tests both nozzles were employed. A mixture dry air and
water vapour produced at 85 C was injected through one of these
nozzles at a rate of 600 cm3 /min. The other nozzle was used to apply
water directly onto the surface of the counter disc in a drop wise
fashion.
Heating of the test disc was undertaken by RF induction heating.
At the start of the test an angular speed of the test disc of 50 rpm
was selected and the induction heater was then switched on, giving
rapid heating to the required temperature. The temperature of the
disc was controlled by means of a Rytek LT infrared optical pyrome-
ter connected to a data acquisition system that compares the value
of the set temperature against the instantaneous reading taken by
the pyrometer, providing a feedback loop to give dynamic tempera-
ture control. The pyrometer was located on the opposite side of the
test disc to the water nozzles (Fig. 2) in order to ensure there was
no distortion of the temperature by water vapour (all water had
evaporated at this point). The heating stage of the test discs was
carried out under the presence of the chosen atmosphere depend-
ing on the experiment (water and water vapour or only dry air).
Once the target temperature was stabilized, the angular speed was
increased to 250 rpm to give a linear speed of about 0.8 m/s, which
is typical of that found in a commercial hot strip mill. Immediately
after reaching the target speed, the discs were brought into con-
tact and a load of 2.5 kg was applied to the discs via a cantilever
resulting in a Hertzian contact pressure of 694 MPa. The slippage
ratio between the discs was 5%. The friction coefcient was mea-
sured and recorded for every test via a transducer located in the
shaft that holds the counter disc, that measures the lateral force
of the system. The test duration was for a linear sliding distance
of 111 km. At every 22 km the test was stopped and the discs were
cooled by forced convection to allow weight loss and roughness
measurements. The wear rate of the test disc was determined by
the standard equation:
V
K= (1)
SL
where K is the specic wear rate (or dimensional wear coefcient)
in units of mm3 /N m, V is the volume of material removed in mm3 ,
 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448 443

S is the applied load in N and L is the sliding distance in m. The wear

rate of the high speed steel disc was studied at 400, 500 and 600 C
under presence of water and water vapour or under the action of
dry air only.
At the end of the tests, the discs were carefully sectioned and
prepared for surface inspection using FEI Sirion FEGSEM and JEOL
6400 scanning electron microscopes (SEMs) both coupled with
energy dispersive X-ray detectors EDX for chemical analysis. The
wear debris generated during the test was collected and analyzed
in a STOE PSD X-ray transmission diffractometer with molybdenum
Mo K as radiation source produced at 50 kV and 30 mA performing
high denition scans comprising 2 angles from 5 to 40 scanned
at a rate of 0.48 2/min.

3. Results

Fig. 3 gives the calculated wear coefcient of the steel discs as a

function of the sliding distance for both test conditions. The highest
wear rates were observed for the tests in dry conditions. For the
dry condition, specic wear rate increased approximately linearly
with sliding distance and was a strong function of test temperature.
The discs tested in the presence of water experienced lower wear
rates, which increased linearly with test temperature. However, in
contrast to the dry tests, the specic wear rate was not a signicant
function of test temperature.
Fig. 3. Wear coefcient calculated for all temperatures and both experimental con-
ditions.
Fig. 4 gives backscattered electron images of the nal surface
state of the discs tested in wet and dry conditions at all the tem-
peratures. The images show the distribution of oxide (conrmed
by EDX, which demonstrated that the oxide was Cr rich), which
appears darker than the metallic regions. For the wet tests at 400 C

Fig. 4. (a)(c) Backscattered electrons images of the surface topography of the discs tested at 400, 500 and 600 C, respectively in water and water vapour. (d)(f) Backscattered
electrons images of the surfaces tested at 400, 500 and 600 C in dry air.
444 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448

Fig. 5. SEM images of a cross-section of the test disc at 600 C. (a) Secondary electron and (b) backscattered electron images for the surface tested under dry conditions.
(c) Secondary electron and (d) backscattered electron image of the wet test. In each case, note surface agglomerated oxide (dark contrast in back scattered images), and
subsurface oxide (labelled in b), which was generally cracked.

(Fig. 4a), the disc contained a small area fraction of discrete oxide
islands. The majority of the surface comprised deformed steel, with
ploughed grooves of similar dimensions to the oxide island size. The
extent of oxide on the worn surface increased substantially in going
from 400 to 500 C, compare Fig. 4a to c, with a further increase in
the size of the oxide islands at 600 C (Fig. 4c). The extent of groov-
ing in the metallic regions also increased with temperature, such
that the surface was much rougher at 600 than it was at 400 C. As
with the test at 400 C, the groove width generally corresponded to
the size of the oxide islands.
The surfaces of the dry tests followed a similar trend to that for
the water lubricated tests (Fig. 4df), except some small, but impor-
tant, differences. The amount of oxide increased with temperature.
The grooving in the metal also increased with temperature in a sim-
ilar manner, and as with the water lubricated tests the groove width
was around the same size as the size of the oxide islands. However,
one important difference was seen. In the water lubricated tests, the
grooved metallic matrix in between the oxide islands was largely
clear of oxide (e.g. Fig. 4c). In contrast, the metallic regions in the
dry test also included oxide particles that appeared to have been
mechanically mixed in with the metal (Fig. 4e and f).
Fig. 5 gives longitudinal cross-sections of the worn surface at
600 C for wet and dry conditions. Two distinct features were
observed. Firstly, surface oxide islands were present, comprising an
agglomeration of particles giving variable backscattered contrast.
The variations in appearance of these oxide islands were greater in
one sample than between wet and dry conditions at this tempera-
ture. Secondly, there were regions where the oxide had penetrated
into the substrate, preferentially (but not always) at the interface
between carbide and matrix. These regions, which were present
for both conditions, gave preferential paths for crack propagation
(Fig. 6).

Fig. 6. Fracture of MC vanadium rich carbide and subsurface oxide. (a) General surface appearance and (b) detail.
 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448
Fig. 7. Oxide thickness as a function of the test temperature.
Fig. 7 shows the oxide thickness as a function of test temperature
for the two conditions. The oxide thickness increased with temper-
ature with a logarithmic relationship, with the oxide thickness of
the wet tests being marginally greater than the dry test.
Fig. 8 gives the friction coefcient as a function of test temper-
ature for the two conditions. The friction coefcient increased in
an approximately linear function with temperature for both con-
ditions, but was signicantly higher for the wet test conditions
compared to the dry.
Fig. 9 gives the surface roughness as a function of sliding dis-
tance for all test conditions. The initial stages of the test resulted in a
rapid rise in roughness. After around 20 km of sliding, the roughness
became rather erratic, sometimes increasing, sometime decreasing.
For a given temperature, the dry tests always gave a rougher sur-
face than the wet tests. As expected, the surface topography of the
counter discs increased during the tests, but only marginally, with
Ra values remaining considerably lower than those measured for
the test discs throughout the test (Fig. 10).
Wear debris from the tests was collected and examined using
X-ray diffraction (Fig. 11). The wear debris collected in the wet con-
ditions was predominantly a mixture of spinel M3 O4 and hematite
Fe2 O3 . EDX analysis indicated that the spinel contained Cr as well
as Fe, such that M = Fe and Cr. Reections associated with the steel
matrix were only detected at 400 C. In contrast, the wear debris
from the dry tests at all the temperatures included high intensity
Fig. 8. Variation of the friction coefcient as a function of the temperature and test
condition.
445
Fig. 9. Roughness evolution of the test discs measured for each test condition.
reections from the steel matrix. Hematite Fe2 O3 was the only iron
oxide phase detected in this test condition, with no spinel found.
The room temperature hardness was measured at the end of
each test. Fig. 12 shows these measurements as a function of the test
temperature for both environmental conditions, expressed as the
hardness reduction during the test. Surprisingly, the tests under-
taken in water suffered much greater hardness loss than those in
the dry conditions. The hardness loss at 400 C was not substantial,
however, at 600 C; up to 500Hv was lost in the wet test, which is
considerable.
4. Discussion
The worn surfaces all contained oxides (see Figs. 4 and 5). The
wear debris was almost entirely oxide for the water lubricated tests
and a mixture of oxide and metal for the dry tests (Fig. 11). There-
fore, oxidational wear was an important mechanism for all tests.
Much is known about oxidational wear from numerous studies
over many years, many of which focus on ferrous materials. It is
clear that oxides play a major role in determining the friction and
wear of these materials, shown for example, by the classical work of
Welsh [9], and Quinn and co-workers (see a comprehensive review
in Quinn [10]). Thus, the friction and wear behaviour observed in
the current study will be related to the role of the oxide formation
Fig. 10. Roughness measurements of the counter discs for each test condition and
temperature.
446 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448

Fig. 11. XRD diffraction spectra of the wear debris generated during the sliding tests at different temperatures and environmental conditions. (a)(c) Test having water and
(d)(f) dry tests.

and detachment, as well as the classic ploughing wear mechanism

Fig. 12. Hardness lost by the discs as a function of the temperature and the environ-
mental conditions present in each test.
that was also evident.
In contrast to the tests that included water, the dry tests yielded
considerably higher wear rates, which were also a strong function
of temperature. In this condition the wear of the test disc appeared
to be associated with two mechanisms: oxidation and plastic defor-
mation (i.e. ploughing). Both mechanisms are strongly linked to the
temperature of the test and their combination has been observed
before for work roll materials subject to sliding conditions (Rain-
forth et al. [11]). The level of oxidation of the surface increased with
the temperature of the test, as shown by the surface state of the
disc (Fig. 4). In addition, oxide became mechanically mixed into the
metal surface, indicating a high degree of plastic deformation of
the metal. This is consistent with the softening of the surface as the
test temperature increased, as shown, for example, by the post-test
hardness values (Fig. 12). Moreover, the proportion of metal in the
wear debris increased markedly with temperature (Fig. 11), indicat-
ing that metallic wear became more important as the temperature
increased. Thus, the behaviour for the dry tests appears to have
 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448
followed the expected trend that has been seen before for the high
temperature wear behaviour of tool steels, as observed by Hanlon
and Rainforth [8], for example.
Cross-sections of the worn surfaces from the dry tests indicated
that the oxide was present in three forms: surface islands compris-
ing agglomerated oxide debris (Fig. 5a), oxide mechanically mixed
with the metal surface and ssures of oxide that penetrated from
the surface into the material (Fig. 5b). In the latter case the oxidation
occurred preferentially at regions of carbide stringers. Such obser-
vations are consistent with the degradation mechanisms observed
on roll materials sectioned after commercial operation [12].
The morphology of the worn surface under water lubricated con-
ditions was different to that under dry conditions. For the dry tests,
the oxide was clearly mechanically mixed into the metal surface
(e.g. Fig. 4e). In contrast, for the water lubricated tests the oxide
tended to stand proud of the surface, as oxide islands. Another
important difference was the presence of spinel M3 O4 as well as
Fe2 O3 in the wear debris from the wet tests. Moreover, a metallic
component was only present in the wear debris at 400 C, but absent
at 500 and 600 C. Thus, there appears to have been two key impor-
tant differences in the contact conditions of the wet and dry tests,
namely predominantly oxide contact for the wet conditions, with
some spinel phase present, with oxide and metallic contact for the
dry, but no spinel present. This indicates that the presence of water
signicantly altered the oxidation reactions that occurred at the
surface. This is consistent with parallel observations on the effect
of water vapour on the isothermal static oxidation of these materi-
als that is reported elsewhere [13]. In static oxidation, the presence
of water vapour was found to fundamentally change the oxidation
kinetics and to change the phase constitution of the oxides at the
surface.
The presence of spinel, M3 O4 is regarded to be benecial, as it is
known to offer wear resistance [1417]. Bisson et al. [14] noted that
water and water vapour promoted lower wear rates as a result of
magnetite formation. Indeed, this oxide appears to be better than
Fe2 O3 at protecting the surface against wear. The combination of
this, and the suppression of metallic wear by the presence of water,
appears to be the main reasons for the lower wear rates observed
for wet tests compared to dry ones.
What remains surprising is the absence of any signicant change
in specic wear rate with temperature for the wet tests. The change
in oxide size, thickness and coverage on the surface with tempera-
ture (Fig. 4) and the change in substrate hardness with temperature
(Fig. 12), would both suggest a change in specic wear rate with
temperature for the wet tests, but this did not occur. It might be
argued that the slope of the specic wear rate with temperature for
the test at 400 C was marginally higher than at the two higher tem-
peratures, but the difference was small and may not be statistically
meaningful. However, it should be noted that the test at 400 C in
wet conditions was the only one that exhibited some small amount
of metallic component to the wear debris, indicating a component
of ploughing metallic wear.
The oxide structure did not change dramatically with test tem-
perature for the wet tests. The absence of a strong effect of
temperature on wear rate suggests that the basic properties of the
oxide (i.e. hardness and fracture strength) did not change enough
to inuence the wear rate between the temperatures of 400 and
600 C. In contrast, the wear rate in the dry tests appears to have
been controlled by metallic wear and not oxidational wear. The
strong inuence of temperature on substrate hardness would there-
fore explain the increase in wear rate with increase in temperature.
The behaviour of the friction coefcient was complex and dif-
cult explain. The friction coefcient was higher for the water
lubricated tests compared to the dry tests (Fig. 8), the reverse of
what would be intuitively expected. Both wet and dry tests exhib-
ited an approximately linear increase with temperature, which is
447
Fig. 13. Variation of the friction coefcient as a function of the oxide scale thickness
measured for each test condition.
not surprising. However, the marked change in friction with tem-
perature for the wet test is completely different behaviour to the
wear rate, which was largely insensitive to temperature. Such an
observation of higher friction with a lubricant is not unique. Hirst
and Lancaster [18] identied that high temperature oxidized stain-
less steel lubricated by stearic acid exhibited a friction coefcient
about 0.56 higher than the one measured for non-oxidized metal
lubricated in the same liquid. In a different investigation, Bisson et
al. [14] found that in the presence of a lubricant lm of cetane, the
friction coefcient of steel sliding against steel had values as high
as 1. However, these authors were not able to dene the reasons for
this behaviour.
The general view is that the formation of oxides on the surface
of metals subject to sliding, particularly steels, would generally be
expected to reduce the friction coefcient [14,15,17,19,20]. This can
be for several reasons: the oxide is harder than the substrate, it may
act as a solid lubricant, and the interfacial shear strength between
an oxide and metal (or another oxide) is lower than between a metal
and metal as the adhesive forces are lower.
The friction force consists of two components related to the con-
tacts formed or junctions. At the simplest level for the same real
contact area, friction can be considered to comprise two additive
components, namely adhesion, Fadhesion , and ploughing, Fploughing .
For the wet case, where the oxide coverage was greater, the value
of Fadhesion should have been lower than for the dry tests. For exam-
ple, so [21] reported that for metallic surfaces sliding against oxides,
the friction coefcient has low values because the adhesion com-
ponent of the coefcient is low. It is certainly difcult to envisage
a scenario where Fadhesion is larger for oxide asperities compared to
metallic ones. Thus, it is not believed that Fadhesion can explain the
higher friction found for the wet tests.
The alternative explanation is that the higher friction for the wet
tests arises as a result of a higher Fploughing . However, this is again
the reverse of what would have been expected as it was the dry
case that was dominated by metallic ploughing, while the wet tests
were dominated by oxide contact. The friction coefcient increased
linearly with the temperature. Given that more oxide was formed
on the surface with increase in temperature, this suggests that the
friction increased as a result of the ploughing component, i.e. as
the substrate became softer. Interestingly, the friction coefcient
appeared to increase almost linearly with the thickness of the oxide,
but for a given oxide thickness, the friction was higher for the wet
test compared to the dry (Fig. 13). However, this might be an indi-
rect effect given that friction and oxide increased with temperature
(Figs. 7 and 8).
448 N.F. Garza-Montes-de-Oca, W.M. Rainforth / Wear 267 (2009) 441448
The above argument regarding Fadhesion and Fploughing is only valid
where the real contact area is the same for both the wet and dry
tests for a given test temperature. The signicant difference in mor-
phology of the contact, i.e. oxide pads for the wet tests compared to
oxide and metallic contact for the dry tests will have undoubtedly
led to differences in real contact area, which may have been the
source of the higher friction in the former. However, it is unlikely
that this was related to the roughness of the counterface, which did
not change greatly during the tests and in any event was lower for
the wet tests than the dry (Fig. 10).
One last experimental observation that is difcult to explain, but
will have had an effect on the friction and wear rate is the frictional
heating. No direct measure of the frictional heating was made (as
this is experimentally impossible for such contact conditions), but
there is an indirect measure. Fig. 12 shows the hardness lost by the
test material as a result of heating during the test. For both wet
and dry conditions there is a near linear increase with test temper-
ature, which is not surprising. However, what is very odd is that
the wet tests lost more hardness than the dry tests, despite having
cold water dropped onto the specimen throughout the test. This can
only mean that the substrate in the wet tests was hotter than in the
dry tests. This was not a result of changes in the bulk temperature
through errors from the pyrometer measurement. Rather, it must
have been a direct effect of the contact conditions and therefore the
ash temperature rise. This implies that the thermal conductivity
at the contacting asperities was lower for the wet tests than the
dry tests. This is consistent with the microstructural observations
that the wet test contacts were oxide, while the dry were a mixture
of oxide and metal. Moreover, the oxides were different between
the two conditions, with spinel being present for the wet tests, but
not for the dry. Spinel M3 O4 exhibits a lower thermal conductiv-
ity (kaverage 0.035 W/(m K) between 400 and 25 C, Molgaard and
Smeltzer [22]) than for Fe2 O3 kaverage 0.053 W/(m K), which would
have resulted in greater ash temperature rises.
5. Conclusions
(1) For rolling-sliding wear tests in the temperature range
400600 C, the specic wear rate under dry conditions is con-
siderably greater than under water lubricated conditions. Under
dry conditions, the wear rate increases with temperature in a
predictable manner, while for the wet conditions the specic
wear rate is essentially temperature independent.
(2) For the dry conditions, the wear mechanism was a mixture of
oxidational and metallic ploughing wear, with the proportion
of the latter increasing with temperature. For the wet condi-
tions, the wear mechanism was essentially oxidational at all
temperatures.
(3) The presence of water and water vapour increased the degree of
oxidation experienced on the surface of high speed steel work
rolls. In addition, the wet conditions led to the formation of a
spinel, M3 O4 , as well as Fe2 O3 , which was absent for the dry
tests. For the dry test, the oxide was present as islands and
was mechanically mixed into the surface. For the wet tests, the
oxide was only present as islands. Thus, the morphology of the
contacting asperities was different for wet and dry tests.
(4) The friction coefcient increased in an approximately linear
manner with test temperature. Surprisingly, the friction coef-
cient was higher for the wet tests compared to the dry. This was
attributed to differences in real contact area between the two
tests.
(5) The hardness decreased approximately linearly with tempera-
ture. However, the hardness decrease was greater for the wet
tests compared to the dry tests, despite the application of cold
water onto the test disk. This was attributed to the lower ther-
mal conductivity of M3 O4 compared to Fe2 O3 , which will have
resulted in greater ash temperature rise.
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the Mexican National Council for Science and
Technology CONACyT and The Autonomous University of Nuevo
Leon Mexico (UANL) for the facilities provided for the development
of this work.
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