The area of micro-abrasion is an interesting and relatively recent area in tribo-testing methodologies, where small particles of less than10 mm are employed between interacting surfaces. It is topical for a number of reasons; its direct relation to the mechanisms of the wearprocess in bio-tribological applications, ease in conducting tests and the good repeatability of the test results. It has widespreadapplications in conditions used in the space and offshore industries to bio-engineering for artificial joints and implants.There have been many recent studies on the micro-abrasion performance of materials, ranging from work basic metals to nanostructuredcoatings. However, no significant work is reported on the micro-abrasion resistance of thermochemically treated steels.Hence, this paper looks at the performance of two thermochemically treated steels, Tenifer bath nitride stainless steel (T-SS) andvanadized carbon steel (V-CS) in such conditions with reference to the stainless steel (SS) by varying the applied load and slidingdistance.The results indicated that T-SS demonstrates exceptionally poor resistance to micro-abrasion. It was observed that the heat treatmentprocess and properties of the hardened layer (hardness and thickness) are extremely important in determining the micro-abrasionresistance of such steels. Finally, the results were used to develop micro-abrasion mechanism and wastage maps, which can be used tooptimize the surface treated materials for micro-abrasion resistance.
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