EFFECT OF HEAT TREATMENT ON THE TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF TOOL STEEL AND MOLD STEEL

Abstract

Heat treatment is one of the most common processes done to metals due to its versatility. It can be used to make a material harder or more machinable according to the type of treatment done. Tool steel and mold steel are usually required to be machinable and need to be hard during operation. Which makes them some of the most commonly heat-treated materials. This study investigates the tribological properties of Hot-work tool steel W302, cold-work tool steel K110, and plastic mold steel M303. It was found that annealing all 3 metals caused the metal to have the highest values of material loss due to wear and the highest friction coefficient. The lowest value for the coefficient of friction for the cold-work tool steel K110 was for the hardened-tempered sample and was the as-received sample for the M303 steel. Hardened-tempered samples across the three tested metals had the highest values of hardness, increasing the hardness of the W302, K110, and M303 by 43.81 %, 126.6 %, and 70.78 % respectively and thus had the lowest values of weight loss due to wear.