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Improving wear resistance of steels through

nanocrystalline structures obtained by bainitic
transformation

R. Rementeria, M. M. Aranda, C. Garcia-Mateo & F. G. Caballero

To cite this article: R. Rementeria, M. M. Aranda, C. Garcia-Mateo & F. G. Caballero

(2016) Improving wear resistance of steels through nanocrystalline structures obtained
by bainitic transformation, Materials Science and Technology, 32:4, 308-312, DOI:
10.1080/02670836.2015.1132048

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 Improving wear resistance of steels through
nanocrystalline structures obtained by bainitic
transformation
R. Rementeria, M. M. Aranda, C. Garcia-Mateo and F. G. Caballero
Nanocrystalline materials are structurally characterised by a large density of grain boundaries
which signicantly alter their mechanical properties in comparison with conventional coarse-
grained materials. Specically, nanocrystallisation has been proven to be an effective method to
improve wear resistance of steels. The recent development of the rst bulk nanocrystalline steel,
which can be produced on a large scale with large dimensions solely by bainitic transformation
at low temperature, has stimulated research in quest of its in-service properties and potential
applications. This paper outlines the work devoted in the last years to assess and understand
the wear response of those nanocrystalline bainitic steels.
Keywords: Steel, Low temperature bainite, Nanostructured bainite, Microstructure control, Wear, Ultrahigh strength, Reviews

This paper is part of a Special Issue on Thematic Issue on Wear Resistant Steels

Introduction to the point where products can be exploited commer-

Several studies indicate that for a given steel composition
and microstructure, a decrease in the effective grain size
leads to an improvement in wear resistance.16 Particu-
larly, grain renement has been proven to enhance wear
resistance in ferritic/pearlitic,1 fully pearlitic,2 austeni-
tic,3,4 martensitic5 and bainitic6 steels. At present, grain
renement methods aim for nano-sized structures based
in either surface or bulk modication of the material.
Surface self-nanocrystallisation of steels, i.e. surface
modication by the generation of a nanostructured surface
layer, is currently achieved by mechanical shot peening
technology, which includes ultrasonic shot peening,7,8
high-energy shot peening,9 laser-shock peening10,11 and
surface mechanical attrition treatments.12,13 These
methods have shown to successfully improve wear resist-
ance in low-carbon,13 medium-carbon,14 high-carbon,15
Hadeld16 and stainless steels.17 Thus, surface nanocrystal-
lisation is an effective approach to bypass the challenges of
manufacturing bulk nanocrystalline steels and improve
wear behaviour regardless of the chemical composition.
However, to fully exploit the benets of the nanostruc-
ture not only improving wear resistance, but also tensile
strength and toughness, bulk modication of the material
should be achieved. Traditional techniques to obtain bulk
nanostructures are based in different forms of severe plas-
tic deformation, such as equal channel angular pressing,18
high-pressure torsion,19 wire drawing20 or mechanical
milling.21 Save for wire drawing, these have not succeeded
Department of Physical Metallurgy, Spanish National Center for Metallurgi-
cal Research (CENIM-CSIC), Avda. Gregorio del Amo 8, E-28040 Madrid,
Spain
Corresponding author, email fgc@cenim.csic.es
cially due to the production costs associated to the large
scale. In this context, a nanocrystalline steel concept
was developed a decade ago,22 where the nanoscale is
retained throughout large components solely by bainitic
reaction in an industrially viable and cost-efcient pro-
cess. These nanocrystalline bainitic steels present attrac-
tive strength/toughness combinations (2.2 GPa/40
MPa m1/2) with improved ductility levels (up to 20%),
what would make them good candidates for high per-
formance components. The aim of this paper is to provide
an overview of the potential use of nanostructured bainite
for applications where wear resistance is a must.
Nanostructured bainite
It is known that the scale of the structure decreases as the
transformation temperature is lowered at the expenses of
long transformation times.23 The bainite start tempera-
ture (Bs) and the martensite start temperature (Ms),
which delimit the temperature window at which bainite
forms, can be lowered by increasing the carbon content
of the steel. However, carbon is by far the strongest
retardant of bainite formation. To keep transformation
times within a reasonable limit, the alloy composition
can be tailored to increase the driving force for transform-
ation, thus accelerating both the nucleation and the
growth rates.24 In this sense, theoretical design has led
to processing times within hours by reducing carbon
(usually 0.60.8 wt-%), manganese, chromium and mol-
ybdenum contents and by using transformation tempera-
tures between 200 and 300C.25 In addition, silicon
contents of about 1.5 wt-% suppress the precipitation of
cementite from austenite allowing its stabilisation down
to ambient temperature.

2016 Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining

Published by Maney on behalf of the Institute
308 DOI 10.1080/02670836.2015.1132048 Materials Science and Technology 2016 VOL 32 NO 4
 Rementeria et al.
1 Scanning electron micrograph of the microstructure
obtained in a Fe0.65C1.60Si1.25Mn1.75Cr0.15Mo nation more effectively than the martensitic, resulting in a
0.12V steel by isothermal transformation at 250C during
15 hours
The nal microstructure roughly consists of nanocrys-
talline plates of ferrite (<100 nm) interwoven with
retained austenite. The density of ferrite/austenite inter-
faces in this structure can be as large as 108 m1, leading
to excellent combinations of strength and toughness.
Retained austenite shows a hierarchical microstructure
that extends over a broad range of length scales, including
the nanolms (<100 nm), the sub-micron blocks (100
1000 nm) and the microblocks (>1000 nm). Figure 1 illus-
trates the multi-scale character of the austenite in an
Fe0.65C1.60Si1.25Mn1.75Cr0.15Mo0.12V steel nanostructured bainite increases as the transformation
transformed at 250C during 15 hours.
The carbon content in the austenite, which is the main
factor controlling its mechanical stability,26 depends on
the size of the austenite feature. Consequently, the smaller
the size of the austenite feature, the higher the amount of
carbon present and the more mechanically stable it is.27
This retained austenite undergoes stress or strain-induced
martensitic transformation, thereby enhancing the work-
hardening capacity of the material. To this end, a wide dis-
tribution of sizes of the retained austenite in the micro-
structure, as illustrated in Fig. 1, will lead to effective
variations of the austenite stability, in such a way that
each austenite feature will transform into martensite at a
stress or strain level dependent on its size (among other
parameters). As a result the work-hardening effect of trans-
formation will be favourably spread all along straining.28
The suitability of these structures for applications where
wear resistance is a requirement is the object of active
research nowadays. In the following, the progresses in
assessing and understanding the wear behaviour of nano-
crystalline bainitic steels are overviewed.
Dry sliding wear
First studies dealing with the wear properties of nanos-
tructured bainite were carried out by Wang et al. 29 in
the commercial 9SiCr tool steel isothermally transformed
to bainite at 200C. The aim of this study was not pre-
cisely to test nanostructured bainite, but to produce an
even ner structure by surface nanocrystallisation by
deformation under large sliding loads. It was found that
retained austenite in the vicinity of the sliding surface
Improving wear resistance of steels through nanocrystalline bainite
decomposes under the inuence of the high shear strains,
resulting in the formation of an even ner structure with
grains of ferrite only about 3 nm in size. It was concluded
that the formation of this ne microstructure resulted in
slight increase in wear resistance, which was a little higher
than that of the same steel with a microstructure consist-
ing of tempered martensite.
Later on, Zhang et al. 30 evaluated the potential use of
nanocrystalline bainite in the manufacture of heavy-
duty gears. Nanocrystalline bainite was produced by iso-
thermal transformation at low temperature in the car-
burised layer of commercial carburising steels and
compared with the equivalent quenched and tempered
microstructures. It was demonstrated that the structure
outperformed somewhat harder martensite. Under high
loads where wear debris are primarily metallic delamina-
tion akes, the bainitic structure was able to resist delami-
higher wear resistance. The factors considered for the
higher wear resistance of the nanostructured bainite
under the higher load are: (i) its higher strength and
toughness; (ii) the ability of the austenite nanolms to
effectively prevent crack propagation; (iii) the hardness
provided by the ferrite nano-grains induced in the dry
sliding friction surface (as already observed by Wang
et al. 29).
Similar conclusions were inferred by Yang et al. 31 when
testing the bulk form of nanostructured bainite, where
again the formation of ferrite nano-grains led to a lower
sliding wear rate than that of harder tempered martensite.
Here, it was also shown that the sliding wear resistance of
temperature is decreased.
Dry rolling-sliding wear
Dry rolling-sliding wear tests are designed to evaluate
steels for railway applications where rolling-sliding wear
limits life. There are plenty of studies in the 1980s litera-
ture that bear witness to the efforts devoted to placing bai-
nite as an alternative to the ordinary pearlitic rail steels,
but with confusing results that have been reviewed else-
where.32 Concerning nanocrystalline bainite, former pub-
lications of Leiro and Sourmail et al. on the wear
behaviour under rolling-sliding conditions,25,33,34
revealed that nanostructured steels exhibit signicantly
lower specic wear rates when compared to other conven-
tional lower and carbide-free bainite microstructures,
even at the same hardness levels. Rolling contact fatigue
(RCF) was determined to be the main mechanism of
material removal in nanocrystalline bainitic steels. The
structures were shown to align with the sliding direction,
constituting a determining factor in the RCF crack by the
creation of preferential paths for cracks to grow along.
Latest calculations of stresses under rolling and sliding
conditions with different slip ratios performed by Das
Bakshi et al. 35 show that in the absence of sliding, the
maximum shear stresses should occur at a certain depth
below the contact surface, whereas pure sliding would
lead to the maximum located at zero depth. Experimental
results following these calculations revealed that a signi-
cant peak in nanohardness is developed at the depth
where the maximum calculated shear stress occurs, indi-
cating that sliding does not play a signicant role in the
mechanism of wear.35 However, this appears in
Materials Science and Technology 2016 VOL 32 NO 4 309
Rementeria et al. Improving wear resistance of steels through nanocrystalline bainite

2 Specic wear rate as a function of initial hardness for current nanocrystalline bainitic steels together with other reference
microstructures tested under the same conditions. Nanocrystalline baintic steels are encoded as xC/y, where x is the carbon
content of the alloy and y is the transformation temperature. The microstructure is indicated for the reference steels; CFB is
carbide-free bainite, P is pearlite, B is conventional bainite and QT is tempered martensite. Further details of individual points
can be found at (i) Leiro et al.,33 (ii) Sourmail et al.,25 (iii) Das Bakshi et al. 35 and (iv) Leiro et al. 36

contradiction with earlier observations,25,33,34 where
adhesive forces at the surface presented an important fac-
tor in creating initiation sites for RCF cracks. Although
the experimental set-up was assumed to be identical in
all these studies, differences in the surface nishing of
the tested materials, rather than subtle changes in the
phase size and distribution of the bainitic structures,
could have led to conicting results. Figure 2 collects
the specic wear rate as a function of the initial hardness
of different nanocrystalline bainitic steels as compared to
other conventional microstructures tested under the same
conditions. The superiority of nanostructured bainitic
steels is indisputable, with specic wear rate values gener-
ally below 104 mm3 Nm1.
Since hardness affects the stress needed to deform the
material in the rolling-sliding contact, it is a paramount
factor in decreasing material loss. The general conclusions
that can be drawn from all these studies are: (i) retained
austenite provides surface hardening by transformation
into martensite, thereby improving wear resistance25,3335
and (ii) a certain amount of the retained austenite must
remain stable through-thickness to add to the toughness,
ductility and crack arrestment capacity of the
material.25,3335
It should be mentioned that the basic requirements of
steels for rail applications are structural integrity, what
implies certain resistance of the material to a wide variety
of failure mechanisms including rolling-sliding wear, in
addition to manufacturability and weldability all in an
cost-effective manner. Originally, carbide-free bainitic
microstructures were meant to substitute pearlitic rails
because they offer higher hardness for lower carbon con-
tents, what would improve both wear resistance and weld-
ability. The use of nanocrystalline bainite in rails violates
this precept and it is unlikely to occur, since the alloy sys-
tems that lead to such structures contain a carbon-equiv-
alent far beyond the norms of acceptability for welding.
Nevertheless, results extracted from these studies can be
useful to the design of steels for other applications, such
as bearing components.
Rolling contact fatigue
The RCF performance of nanobainitic structures, of
paramount importance in the context of bearings, has
rarely been studied. Work developed by Solano-Alvarez
et al. 37 showed that the damage mechanism is quite differ-
ent from that observed in conventional bearing steels (e.g.
AISI 52100 bearing steel). In particular, ductile void for-
mation at ferrite/martensite interfaces is prominent, fol-
lowed by growth and coalescence into larger voids that
lead to fracture along the direction of the softer phase.
Void formation is assumed to be induced by the strain
incompatibility between the hard, untempered martensite
originated from the strain-induced transformation of the
austenite blocks and the relatively soft bainitic ferrite.38
Nevertheless, when cracks do form by the linking of
voids, they exhibit considerable branching, which delays
nal fracture. This is different from the conventional
damage mechanism that involves crack initiation at
inclusions and propagation producing spalling failure
(aking of the steel surface), for example in typical bear-
ing steels such as AISI 52100. Further work comparing
nanostructured bainite against conventional bearing
steels is required to assess whether the failure mechanisms
and RCF life are better or worse than in the latter alloys.
It is worth to mention the new challenges faced in high
power wind turbines and off-shore installations where
premature failure of bearings systematically occurs.39
The high rate of growth in wind turbine size and capacity
is resulting in more extreme operating conditions for what
currently available materials are not suitable.40 Premature
bearing failures have the form of white structure aking,
which differs from the conventional subsurface slow
material decay caused by RCF. This type of aking is
unpredictable and commonly occurs at 510% of L10

310 Materials Science and Technology 2016 VOL 32 NO 4

 Rementeria et al.
life (the L10 life characterises the RCF life for a given
operating condition at which statistically 90% of bearings
survive).41 White structure failure is often associated with
ill-dened loadings, hydrogen ingress or the material
itself.41 New steels need to be designed that are hard,
with enhanced toughness and immune to hydrogen.
Whether nanocrystalline bainite is suitable for these appli-
cations is yet an unexplored terrain.
Abrasive wear
The abrasive wear resistance of nanostructured bainitic
steels has hardly been studied at all yet. Previous work42
compares the three-body abrasive wear resistance of ne
pearlite (380 HV30), nanostructured bainite (620
HV30), and coarse untempered martensite (740 HV30)
produced from a single alloy with silica sand as the abra-
sive medium (960 HV0.2). The somewhat unexpected out-
come for the steel studied is that, despite the large
differences in hardness between the three structures,
there is not much of a variation in the abrasion data, all
of them being superior to that of many steels available
commercially. The correlation between hardness and
wear does not fail because the microstructure is coarser
than the grit size,43 since the latter (300 m) is coarser
than any of the structures explored, but because different
mechanisms of surface damage operate in each case. In
the case of pearlite, the abrasive particles slide and are
sometimes halted in their progress, leading to extensive
pitting. Fragmentation of the surface is the mechanism
for the untempered martensite, with very little affected
material adhering to the steel surface. Like the case of
pearlite, there is signicant plastic deformation at the
active surface of bainite, with good adhesion of the
damaged material. Nanoindentation tests showed that
only the bainitic structure is hardened at the surface,
and that reaustenitisation might occur, with subsequent
martensitic transformation which causes hardness levels
to increase. Both the pearlitic and martensitic samples
showed signicant softening in the abraded surface
regions.
Summary
Nanocrystalline bainitic steels have demonstrated an
excellent wear response in a wide variety of contact con-
gurations. It has been shown that for each wear system,
the structures can be optimised by adjusting the amount,
size and stability of phases. To this end, the specic role of
each phase in the wear mechanisms must be rst
understood.
Acknowledgements
The authors gratefully acknowledge the Research Fund
for Coal and Steel for supporting ongoing research on
wear resistance of nanostructured bainite under the con-
tract RFSR-CT-2014-00016. R.R. and F.G.C. want to
express their gratitude to the Corrosion and Protection
of Materials Group (COPROMAT) for providing support
and assistance.
Improving wear resistance of steels through nanocrystalline bainite
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