The effect of temperature on sliding wear of steel-tool steel pairs

The need to reduce the use of lubricants and the increased use of high strength steels has resulted in increased wear of die materials employed in the sheet metal stamping industry. In this study, unlubricated sliding wear tests of mild carbon steel sliding on D2 tool steel were performed using a pin-on-disc tribometer to investigate the wear mechanisms relevant to stamping tools. Constant force and speed were applied while the sliding distance and temperature were varied to investigate the effect of temperature on the two paired steel materials. It was found that the wear mechanisms of D2 tool steel were temperature dependent, showing a significant transition in dominant mechanisms in the ambient to 150 °C temperature range. Such wear behavior has not been reported in literature. An interesting aspect of this study is that material transfer between the tool and sheet can be minimized at a certain temperature range. Hence, the results of this study may be of economic importance to the automotive industry and influence the wear models employed for future tool wear analysis in sheet metal stamping.