Influence of sliding frequency on reciprocating wear of mold steel with different microstructures. Póster

Abstract

Large forged steel blooms are employed to fabricate molds for plastics used in the automotive industry. Each mold is expected to produce a few millions of pieces in its life. Wear under service conditions may be severe and may combine with other stresses to cause crack nucleation and failure. The present manufacturing process consists of machining pre-hardened blooms. The dimensions of the blooms use to exceed the hardenability of the steel, thus different microstructures occur at increasing depths, all of them being affected by the subsequent tempering. Due to finishing operations, any of the microstructures occurring at different positions in the original bloom can be found at the mold face. Thus, steel properties and wear resistance should be studied as a function of the microstructure.