Glass-Forming Weld Overlay for Wear Resistance and Toughness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing weld overlay materials lack the ability to achieve high hardness and wear resistance while maintaining toughness, as they often rely on macrocomposites with hard particles that may not effectively resist nucleation and growth during welding, leading to inadequate microstructural refinement.
Innovation Solution
The use of inherently glass-forming metallic alloys, created by combining an iron-based feedstock powder with an iron-based electrode, which includes specific weight percentages of iron, manganese, chromium, boron, carbon, silicon, niobium, molybdenum, and tungsten, to produce a weld overlay with refined microstructure and enhanced properties.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If hard particles are incorporated into a binder to create macrocomposite weld overlay materials, then wear resistance is improved, but microstructural refinement is insufficient leading to inadequate toughness
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the chemical composition parameters by incorporating specific elements (boron, niobium, titanium, vanadium, zirconium, hafnium) in controlled amounts to promote glass formation and microstructural refinement, transforming the material from a conventional macrocomposite to a refined composite with enhanced toughness while maintaining wear resistance
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates a refined composite material structure where hard particles are embedded in a glass-forming binder matrix that contains specific alloying elements. This composite structure achieves both wear resistance from the hard particles and toughness from the refined glass-forming matrix, resolving the contradiction between these two properties
2Ease of manufacture
If conventional binder materials are used to hold hard particles, then particle capture is achieved, but nucleation and growth resistance is insufficient during welding
Solution Approach 1:
The binder composition is modified by adding specific elements (boron, niobium, titanium, vanadium, zirconium, hafnium) that increase nucleation and growth resistance during welding. This parameter change transforms the binder from a conventional material to a glass-forming material that maintains compositional stability under welding thermal cycles
Solution Approach 2:
The invention utilizes phase transition characteristics of glass-forming materials that resist crystallization during welding cooling. The binder undergoes a controlled phase transition that prevents unwanted nucleation and growth, maintaining material stability while still allowing particle capture during deposition
3Strength
If high volume fractions of hard particles are used, then wear resistance is improved, but binder matrix continuity is reduced leading to decreased toughness
Solution Approach 1:
The invention changes the binder composition parameters to include glass-forming elements that enable the binder to maintain continuity and toughness even at high hard particle volume fractions. The modified binder matrix provides a continuous phase that connects hard particles while maintaining material integrity and toughness
Solution Approach 2:
The invention creates an optimized composite structure where the glass-forming binder matrix maintains continuity despite high hard particle content. This refined composite architecture allows high volume fractions of wear-resistant particles while the continuous glass-forming matrix preserves toughness through its ability to deform and absorb energy
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The approach results in weld overlays with grain sizes less than 1000 μm, achieving higher hardness, improved wear resistance, and increased toughness due to the refined microstructure and borocarbide phases, as demonstrated by Rockwell C hardness testing and dry sand rubber wheel abrasion testing.
Implementation Method 1
combining an iron-based feedstock powder with an iron-based electrode, which includes specific weight percentages of iron, manganese, chromium, boron, carbon, silicon, niobium, molybdenum, and tungsten, to produce a weld overlay with refined microstructure
Implementation Method 2
produce a weld overlay with refined microstructure and enhanced properties
Implementation Method 3
The present disclosure relates to an approach of producing relatively high hardness overlays using metallic alloy chemistries that may be considered inherently glass forming
Implementation Method 4
The alloys may exhibit some degree of nucleation and crystallization upon solidification. However, grain structures, i.e., crystallites including atoms, molecules or ions, arranged in an orderly repeating pattern, present in the alloy may be less than 1000 μm
Implementation Method 5
combining an iron-based feedstock powder with an iron-based electrode in a welding process such as submerged arc and its variations to form relatively high hardness overlays
Data Source
AI summary
A method of applying a metallic alloy overlay including providing an iron based feedstock powder including 10 to 75 weight percent iron and manganese, 10 to 60 weight percent of chromium, 1 to 30 weight percent of an interstitial element selected from boron, carbon, silicon or combinations thereof, 0 to 40 weight percent of a transition metal selected from molybdenum, tungsten or combinations thereof and 1 to 25 weight percent niobium. The method also includes providing an electrode including at least 50 weight percent iron and depositing a weld overlay with the feedstock powder and the electrode to create a metallic alloy exhibiting a grain size in the range of 1,000 μm or less.