Resumen de Study of tribological, corrosion and tribocorrosion behavior of new martensitic stainless steels for aeronautical applications
The present study is part of the work carried out in the MEKINOX project (Mécanique Inoxydable ¿ FUI n° 11) conducted by aeronautical industry with the main goal of developing new stainless steels for manufacturing high mechanical performance parts. Martensitic stainless steels are widely used in a great variety of industrial applications (i.e. valves, pumps, turbines, compressor components¿) where high mechanical properties as strength, wear resistance and fatigue behavior are needed. In many of those applications, such as bearings or gears, martensitic stainless steels may be subject to tribological conditions leading to wear. Furthermore, when a contact operates in a corrosive environment its deterioration can be significantly affected by the surface chemical phenomena, leading to a tribocorrosion degradation mechanism.
Under this framework, the present Doctoral Thesis aims to evaluate the tribological, corrosion and tribocorrosion behavior of new martensitic stainless steels and their degradation mechanisms for aeronautical applications. For this, electrochemical, tribo-electrochemical and ex-situ surface analysis techniques were used. Wear damage was found to be critically affected by the hardness of the material and its hardening during sliding. Martensitic stainless steels showed higher scratch wear resistance but higher wear material loss when compared to the austenitic stainless steel. Corrosion resistance of martensitic stainless steels is driven by their passivity, whose kinetics can be described through a high field conduction model. Passive dissolution rate depends on the surface chemistry of the material, thus decreasing with the Cr content in the passive film. Degradation mechanisms involved in tribocorrosion of martensitic stainless steels included plastic deformation, shakedown and low-cycle fatigue. The consequences of those involved mechanisms depended on the prevailing electrochemical conditions.
