ABRASION RESISTANCE OF SURFACE-MODIFIED STEELS USED FOR ARTILLERY WEAPON BARRELS

A barrel is one of the most tribologically and thermally loaded parts of artillery weapons. The influence of the salt bath nitrocarburizing and hard-chrome plating of three steels used for artillery barrels on their abrasion resistance is studied in this paper. The tested steels are 42CrMo4, 30CrNiMo8, and 36CrNiMo4 in the initial quenched and tempered state. The test results from the "dry sand/rubber wheel" method, after 700 m of wear path, showed that the hard-chrome plating of 42CrMo4 and 30CrNiMo8 steels improved their abrasion resistance. In addition, reduced abrasive wear of 42CrMo4 steel samples was also achieved by nitrocarburizing. Hard chrome-plated samples exhibited good wear resistance due to their greater hardness and bigger thickness of the compound zone in comparison with that obtained on nitrocarburized samples.