Cladded steel for clutch disc carriers: On the formability and wear properties

Current clutch disc carriers are often heat treated in complex ways to provide for the required wear resistance. Using steels cladded by hot rolling could be a cost efficient alternative. However, such cladded steels need to simultaneously show high wear resistance as well as good formability to ensure the manufacturability of the disc carrier. In the present work the wear resistance of a low-alloy steel cladded with a thin 100Cr6 layer is characterized using a pin-plate test. To evaluate the formability bending tests are conducted. It is found that the wear resistance of the cladded steel is superiour to that of the monolithic high-strength low-alloy steel. The formability of the cladded steel is found to be good in general, however, inferior to that of the monolithic steel.