Effect of Boron Microaddition on the Wear Behavior of AHSS Complex‐Phase (CP) Steel

This work explores the boron effect on the wear behavior of AHSS complex‐phase (CP) steel under different microstructure processing. For this purpose, samples taken from the reference and boron‐microalloyed states were thermally and plastically processed from the as‐cast condition as follows: (i) quenched and tempered sample heated at 910°C and 600°C, respectively, (ii) one‐step quenching and partitioning treatment processed at a maximum temperature of 1006°C, quenched at 400°C into molten salt bath and partitioned during 8 min, and (iii) hot and cold rolling condition (plastically deformed) followed by a stress relief treatment carried out at 550°C. After this, the microstructure was revealed and analyzed, and parallelly pin‐on‐disk wear tests were carried out using a force of 24.5 N, testing velocity of 0.471 m/s, and a total rotating distance of 2.544 km during 3 h. In addition, their corrosion performance was measured by immersion in a 3.5% NaCl aqueous solution for 30 min for each microstructural condition before wear testing. Results showed that the combination of boron microaddition helps to obtain specific microstructures and promotes their refining. With respect to the microhardness, an increase was observed in the deformed condition reaching at least 50 units. However, both B0 and B60 quenched and tempered steels presented the better wear resistance. The main wearing mechanism for all the tested conditions was abrasion characterized by the presence of grooves, deep furrows, and delamination containing oxide clusters. Also, boron‐containing heat‐treated steels present better corrosion resistance. Finally, all the evaluated material conditions present good wear displacement resistance by the fact of presenting wearing rate values between 10 −8 and 10 −10 .