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Wear 267 (2009) 550–555

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

Short communication

Boron influence on wear resistance in nickel-based alloys

J. Diabb, A. Juárez-Hernandez, R. Colas, A.G. Castillo, E. García-Sanchez,
M.A.L. Hernandez-Rodriguez ∗
Facultad de Ingeniería Mecánica y Eléctrica, Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León Av. Universidad S/N, San Nicolás de los Garza, Nuevo León 66450, Mexico

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Nickel-based alloys are used in aerospace, aeronautical, nuclear, chemical and petrochemical applications
Received 1 September 2008 due to their high resistance to corrosion, wear, and good mechanical properties. The aim of the present
Received in revised form 18 December 2008 study is to know the wear resistance in Ni–B–Si alloys. Four disc specimens with different compositions
Accepted 19 December 2008
0.4, 1.0, 1.7, and 3 wt% of boron were prepared by centrifugal casting and tested in a pin-on-disk tribome-
ter carried with friction coefficient system measurement. Each of the specimens was characterized with
Keywords:
metallographic techniques, scanning electronic microscope (SEM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS),
Nickel alloys
X-ray diffraction, roughness and hardness test. Results showed that there is an increase of the Ni3 B inter-
Ni–B
Nickel boron
metallic as B was increased, thus the specimen with the highest level of boron had 10 times minor wear
Wear on nickel alloys than the specimen with the lowest level, finally hardness test displayed an important increment from 26
to 53 HRC as the Ni3 B level was increased.
© 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Table 1
Chemical composition (wt.%) of samples.

Nickel is an element that can be alloyed with a variety of ele- Sample Ni B Si Mn Cr Mo Cu C S Fe

ments such as: iron, chromium and cobalt having a high solubility. M1 93.7 1.2 2.5 0.4 0.52 0.03 0.9 0.11 0.003 0.6
Ni-based alloys are used in several industrial applications gas tur- M2 93.14 1.8 2.5 0.4 0.51 0.03 0.9 0.11 0.003 0.6
bine parts, medical applications and nuclear systems, which mainly M3 92.45 2.5 2.5 0.4 0.50 0.03 0.9 0.11 0.003 0.6
solve wear resistance, corrosion and thermal fatigue problems. M4 91.42 3.5 2.4 0.4 0.53 0.03 0.9 0.11 0.003 0.6

These features lead the development of new Ni-based alloys with

mechanical properties that prolong the lifespan.
trifugal casting, with different compositions 0.4, 1.0, 1.7 and 3%
Improvement of machine elements such as bearings, gears
boron. Wear tests were performed to each specimen by pin-on-
and cams on wear resistance that are exposed to contact are of
disk and were characterized by scanning electron microscopy
paramount importance. Nowadays there is a need to develop new
(SEM), optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, tests of roughness and
materials in order to decline wear rate. On the other hand, tri-
toughness.
bology works seek different ways to reduce friction and wear on
mechanical components, thus investigate and analyze the phe-
nomena involved in the friction process, lubrication and wear
[1–5].
Studies made by Richard Sisson and Keyffer J. Salas described the
formation of carbides and borides that provide a strengthening in
the alloy. These precipitates contribute in having better hardness,
heat resistant and wear. These non-metallic compounds display
typical properties of ceramic materials [6–10].
The aim of this study was to research the wear resistance
on different Ni–B–Si alloys, which were obtained through cen-

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +52 81 14920375.

E-mail addresses: malhdz@gmail.com, mhernandez@gama.fime.uanl.mx
(M.A.L. Hernandez-Rodriguez). Fig. 1. Scheme showing areas used for calculate loss volume.

0043-1648/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wear.2008.12.046
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J. Diabb et al. / Wear 267 (2009) 550–555 551

Fig. 2. 400× nickel-based alloy micrographic with (a) 1.2 wt% boron; (b) 1.8 wt% boron; (c) 2.5 wt% boron; and (d) 3.5 wt% of boron.

Fig. 3. Phases diagram of (a) B–Ni and (b) and Si–Ni [11].
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552 J. Diabb et al. / Wear 267 (2009) 550–555

Fig. 4. SEM micrographs of the sample with 3.5% of boron (a) 600× and (b) 2300×.

Fig. 5. EDS chemical compositions: (a) ␣Ni phase and (b) intermetallic phase.
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J. Diabb et al. / Wear 267 (2009) 550–555 553

2. Experimental procedure

2.1. Sample preparation

An induction furnace was used with a centrifugal casting mold

made of alumina with a copper base. Liquid metal was cast at a
temperature of 1500 ◦ C. Nickel and Ni–B–Si alloys were used obtain-
ing samples M1, M2, M3 and M4 with different boron contents are
shown in Table 1, analysis were made by atomic absorption.

2.2. Sample characterization

Optical microstructure characterization was made on an optical

microscope Olympus brand model PMG3 at different magnifica-
tions. The samples were attacked with 50 ml HNO3 and 50 ml acetic Fig. 6. X-ray difractogram on the specimen with 3.5% of boron.
acid for 5 s. The scanning electron microscopy characterization was
carried on a Jeol JSM LV 6490 equipment using (EDS) to analyze
the chemical composition of different phase and wear mechanisms
promoted by the pin-on-disk test. X-ray diffraction (DRX) Bruker
D8 Advance equipment was used to determine boron intermetallic
particles. Besides roughness tests were made with surftest VS-3000
equipment with a resolution of 0.005 ␮m. Finally hardness tests
were made with a Galileo A 200 equipment applying a load of 150 kg
on the HRC scale.

2.3. Wear tests

The wear tests were conducted by a pin-on-disk tribometer

according to ASTM G99, on the surface previously polished on
four specimens with dry sliding conditions, tests lasted 40 min at
constant velocity of 0.14 m/s and an applied load of deadweight
of 50 N, the material of the pin was a SKF Hard steel balls with a
diameter of 9.5249 mm. The mass loss was obtained by a geometric
method computing the data measured in a coordinates microscopy,
see Fig. 1.

3. Results and discussions

3.1. Microstructure

Roughness (Ra) test on the optical microscopy specimens have

a value of 0.040 ␮m. Fig. 2 shows four micrographs at 400× with Fig. 7. Ni–Si–B phase ternary diagram proposed.
1.2, 1.8, 2.5 and 3.5 wt% boron, where there is a ␣Ni primary den-
dritic phase in a ␣Ni–Ni3 B eutectic matrix; eutectic percentage is
increased as boron increased thus dendrite primary phase tends to formation of ␣Ni phase. On the other hand, in the Ni3 B inter-
disappear. metallic phase, B was not detected due to technique limitations,
Fig. 3a shows the B–Ni phase diagram where it is observed that but it is noted the presence of Si from of ␣Ni phase (see table of
at 3.6 wt% boron the ␣Ni–Ni3 B eutectic phase is formed this explain Fig. 5b).
the increase of the eutectic phase and the decrease of the ␣Ni pri-
mary dendritic phase [9] as boron increases, and Fig. 3b shows the
Si–Ni phase diagram where it is seen that Ni and Si formed a solid
solution up to 8.2 wt% Si.

3.2. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis and X-ray

diffraction

In Fig. 4 it is shown the microstructure for the Ni–Si–B system.

It is observed the simultaneous precipitation of two phases from
a liquid, which gives an eutectic of laminar structure. The laminar
eutectic forms colonies (bands) of a discontinuous phase, parallel
to one another according the binary phase diagrams we have an
␣Ni–Ni3 B eutectic phase, identified by SEM as ␣Ni bright gray and
Ni3 B dark gray.
Fig. 5 shows the semi-quantitative analysis (EDS), it is observed
that the ␣Ni phase presented a rich concentration in Nickel and Si
and the rest Fe and Cr, this concentration proves the solid solution Fig. 8. Rockwell C measuring hardness of the four specimens.
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554 J. Diabb et al. / Wear 267 (2009) 550–555

Fig. 9. SEM micrographs of a 30× four specimens with different concentrations of boron (a) specimen with 1.2% boron; (b) 1.8% specimen with boron; (c) 1.8% specimen with
boron; (d) 2.5% specimen with boron; (d) 3.5% specimen with boron.

An analysis by X-ray diffraction for Ni–2.5 wt% Si–3.5 wt% B alloy 3.5. Wear mechanisms
shows the important peaks, Fig. 6. One of them corresponds to the
FCC ␣Ni phase in the body (a = 3524; b = 3524 Å; c = 3.524 Å), besides Fig. 9 shows SEM micrographs of specimens for the different
it is noted the presence of second peak which corresponds to the boron concentrations that were carried out the tribometer pin-on-
orthorhombic Ni3 B phase (a = 5232 Å, b = 6609 Å; c = 4389 Å). disk. It can be noted that as Ni3 B is increased the plough width
decreases indicating a wear favorable condition. This behavior is
3.3. Microstructure related to the hardness increase.
Fig. 10 shows the plot volume loss vs B content supporting SEM
From the chemical composition it is observed that there are observations except for 1.2 and 1.8 wt% B where wear keeps con-
two main alloying elements silicon with a constant percentage of stant. It is noted that the specimen with 3.5 wt% of boron increases
2.5 wt%, and boron with four concentrations (see Table 1). Based on above one order of magnitude compared with 1.2 and 1.8 wt% boron.
experimental results a ternary phase diagram system is proposed
for the Ni, Si and B in order to explain microstructures found, the
eutectic region is extended up to 2.5 wt% Si as in the Ni, 2.5 wt% Si,
3.6 wt% B alloy keeps nearly a fully eutectic microstructure, Fig. 7;
percentages lower than 3.6 wt% B alloys fall into a region of a ␣Ni
primary dendritic phase and ␣Ni–Ni3 B eutectic phases, and based
on the binary Si–Ni phase diagram the whole silicon is dissolved
into the ␣Ni phase, the evolution of the microstructure can be
observed in Fig. 2.

3.4. Hardness test

Fig. 8 shows hardness values for different experimental con-

ditions where it increases as B content increases. It resulted
in a value close to 13.2 units in Rockwell C hardness per
percentage of boron approximately; this is explained by the
increment in content of the Ni3 B phase. Further research is nec-
essary in order to determine the mechanical properties of every
phase. Fig. 10. Volume loss versus boron.
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J. Diabb et al. / Wear 267 (2009) 550–555
Fig. 11. (a) Worn surface of the specimen with 2.5 wt% of boron (b) worn surface on the specimen with 3.5 wt% boron.
Fig. 11 shows the surfaces of the specimens with 2.5 and 3.5% of
boron where it is observed typical abrasive groves and delamina-
tions mechanism caused by plastic deformation having as a result
cracking formation and surface defragmentation. These mecha-
nisms were similar in all conditions; nevertheless for the 3.5%
B content presented less abrasive and plastic deformation, see
Fig. 11b, it supports that concentrations of Ni3 B reinforce the matrix.
4. Conclusions
• By increasing wt% boron, the intermetallic compounds Ni3 B are
increased up to a fully eutectic microstructure in 3.56 wt% boron.
• A ternary phase diagram is proposed where the eutectic point is
extended up to 2.5 wt% Si with 3.5 wt% B content.
• Hardness values are increased from 26 to 52 HRC with %wt B
concentrations following a proportional trend of 13.2 HRC.
• 3.5 wt% of boron increases wear resistance above one order of
magnitude.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge CONACYT Mexico and
FIME-UANL for their support to this research.
555
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