In this paper, a comparison study was carried out to investigate the influence of carbon content on the microstructure, hardness, and impact toughness of water-quenched Mn13Cr2 and Mn18Cr2 cast steels. The study results indicate that both steels’ water-quenched microstructures are composed of austenite and a small amount of carbide. The study also found that, when the carbon contents are the same, there is less carbide in Mn18Cr2 steel than in Mn13Cr2 steel. Therefore, the hardness of Mn18Cr2 steel is lower than that of Mn13Cr2 steel but the impact toughness of Mn18Cr2 steel is higher than that of Mn13Cr2 steel. With increasing the carbon content, the hardness increases and the impact toughness decreases in these two kinds of steels, and the impact toughness of Mn18Cr2 steel substantially exceeds that of Mn13Cr2 steel. Therefore, the water-quenched Mn18Cr2 steel with high carbon content could be applied to relatively high impact abrasive working conditions, while the as-cast Mn18Cr2 steel could be only used under working conditions of relatively low impact abrasive load due to lower impact toughness.
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