Wear Behavior of en-42 Ploughshare Blades Hardfaced by Fe-based Alloys in Actual Field Conditions

In the present work EN-42 ploughshare steel has been hardfaced by three different iron-based hardfacing namely H1, H2, and H3 using the Manual Metal Arc welding technique with an aim to improve the abrasive wear behavior of ploughshare blades. In addition, the influence of the single layer and the double layer of overlaid material has also been investigated. The single-layer hardfacings were designated as H1, H2, and H3, and double-layer hardfacings were designated as HH1, HH2, and HH3. The experiments were performed in sandy loom soil in the actual field. The tractor with a horsepower of 60 HP was used for experimenting, the tractor speed was kept as 3 km/h and the depth of ploughing was kept as approximately 15 cm. Abrasive wear was analyzed from the weight loss of ploughshare blades in actual field trails. From the results it is revealed that bare steel ploughshare experienced significant weight (103g) and length loss (31mm) in actual field trials, indicating low abrasive wear resistance. Hardfaced ploughshare blades exhibited sufficient abrasive wear resistance. H1 hardfacing has provided better protection to the ploughshare steel in actual field trials, which may be attributed to the presence of complex carbides in the microstructure in needle shape. H3 hardfacing composed of iron-based has also shown good wear resistance, however, due to its brittle nature, it got fractured due to the high impact of hard particles in the soil. Further, except for H1 hardfacing, single-layer hardfacings provided better abrasive wear resistance than the double-layer hardfacings to the ploughshare blades. The wear rate index of bare, H1, H2 and H3 hardfaced steel are 1, 1.45, 1.25, and 1.28 respectively in actual field trials.