Metal embedding and ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification technology for super wear-resistant mechanical parts

High wear resistance is required for various mechanical parts that are in frequent physical contact with other mechanical parts, especially in heavy equipment, railways, and vehicles. For this reason, we propose a new design approach where zones of frequent contact are carved out and high-strength metals are substituted to form embedded parts in the grooves via an additive metal layer deposition (AM) process. In this work, the base metal was a casting iron and the metallic powder used in the AM process was AISI-H13, which is an excellent wear-resistant metal. After embedding, an ultrasonic nanocrystal surface modification (UNSM) process is applied as a post-process to increase the resistance properties of the wear zone by compressive residual stress. This work experimentally confirms that the wear rate decreased by up to 98.78% compared to the original base material gray cast iron; the wear rate in the embedded zone was almost 0%. We believe that the proposed method can be utilized for industrial applications as a surface strengthening technology to realize super wear resistance.