Impact abrasive wear behaviour of the multiphase microstructure in a medium carbon quenched and partitioned bainitic steel

To enhance the impact abrasive wear resistance of steel for mining and metallurgy industries, a 0.3C steel with a multiphase microstructure of bainitic, martensitic and retained austenite was produced by a Q&P process involving bainitic transformation, and its wear performance under impact abrasive conditions was evaluated in contrast with fully martensitic and fully bainitic steels. The results revealed that the multiphase microstructure demonstrates outstanding combination of strength (1612 MPa), toughness (105 J), hardness (48.7 HRC) and elongation (19.2%), along with superior impact abrasive wear resistance. After 90 min of impact abrasive wear test, the multiphase microstructure shows lower wear loss than that for the fully martensitic and fully bainitic steels, which can be attributed to its high surface microhardness and increased toughness. The formation of nanograins and an increase in dislocation density as well as the retained austenite transformation leads to the higher surface microhardness. In addition, some larger craters can be observed on the wear surface of fully martensitic and fully bainitic steels, and the crack propagation depth is larger under the wear surface. In contrast, the wear surface of the multiphase microstructure presents some delamination damage, and the crack propagation depth is shallow because of the thicker deformed layer and presence of film-like austenite retained in the deformed microstructure. These results suggested that the multiphase microstructure can be used as a potential candidate structure for enhanced resistance to impact abrasive wear. •The multiphase microstructure shows better impact abrasive wear resistance.•Higher surface hardness and better toughness are responsible for the lower wear loss.•The wear surface of multiphase microstructure is main dominant by delamination model.•The wear damage level of the multiphase microstructure is lower.