Researchers of the State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication have produced a nano-eutectic Fe1.87C0.13 alloy by a self-propagating high temperature synthesis (SHS) technique recently. And they investigated its tribological properties under ambient environment, compared the results with the corresponding coarse-grained alloy obtained by annealing treatment and explored the friction and wear mechanism.

　  It is found that the wear resistance of the nano-eutectic Fe1.87C0.13 alloy is about 2–6 times higher than that of the annealed coarse-grained Fe1.87C0.13 alloy, and the wear rates increase with increasing applied load and sliding speed. Friction coefficients of the two alloys are almost same. These results demonstrate that the wear resistance of the Fe1.87C0.13 alloy is improved by forming nanostructure to obtain enhanced mechanical properties, but the friction coefficient is not significantly affected owing to almost the same friction surface states. The wear mechanism of the nano-eutectic Fe1.87C0.13 alloy is transformed from fatigue wear to light ploughing and delamination with increasing applied load and sliding speed, but that of annealed Fe1.87C0.13 alloy is dominated by serious ploughing and delamination.

　  The nano-eutectic Fe–C alloyis expected to have good wear resistance and promising applications as wear-resistant structural parts such as bearings, gears and molds.

　  This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the National 973 Project of China and the Innovation Group Foundation from NSFC. And it is published in the recent issue of Wear (Wear 2010 268:991-995).

　  Abstract of the paper published in Wear

SEM secondary electron images of the nano-eutectic (a) and annealed (b) Fe1.87C0.13 alloy