Cryogenic Treatment of M1, EN19 and H13 Tool Steels to Improve Wear

Resistance
P Sekhar Babu, Member
P Rajendran, Non-member
Dr K N Rao, Fellow

Cryogenic treatment is said to improve wear resistance of tool and die steels and implemented at many places for that purpose. Although it has
been confirmed that cryogenic treatment improves wear resistance and tool life, the process has not been standardised with inconsistent results
varying from researcher to researcher.In this work the authors have studied the improvement in wear resistance of M1, EN19 and H13 tool
steels after cryogenic treatment. The materials were tested for improvement in abrasive wear resistance after cryogenic treatment at different
temperatures below 0°C. All the samples were first heat treated as per standard norms and re tempered after cryogenic treatment. The samples
were treated at 0° C, -20° C, - 40° C, -80° C and -190° C. It was observed that the wear resistance improved for all the samples from 315%
to 382% depending on the material.

Keywords: Tool and die steels; Wear resistance; Cryogenic treatment

INTRODUCTION
NASA engineers were the first to notice the effects of cold
temperatures on materials. They noticed that many of the metal
parts in the aircraft that had returned from the cold vacuum of space
came back stronger than they were before flight. Since then sub-zero
treatment (-80° C) has been used for many years, but with inconsistent
results. Many of the inconsistencies were reduced by longer soaking
periods and with deep cryogenic treatment (-190° C).
Tool steels are high quality steels made to close compositional and
physical tolerances. These are used to make tools for cutting, forming
or shaping a material into a part or component adapted for a specific
use. In service most tool steels are subjected to extremely high loads
that are applied rapidly. The material must withstand these loads a
great number of times without breaking and without undergoing
excessive wear or deformation.
The performance of a tool in service depends on1,2
(i) proper tool design,
(ii) accuracy with which the tool is made,
(iii) selection of proper tool steel, and
(iv) application of proper heat treatment.
A tool can perform successfully in service only when all four
requirements have been fulfilled. All tool steels must be heat treated
to develop specific combinations of wear resistance, resistance to
deformation or breaking under high loads, and resistance to
softening at elevated temperatures.
P Sekhar Babu is with the Mechanical Engineering Department, Vignan
Institute of Technology and Science, Deshmukhi 508284, Nalgonda,
Andhra Pradesh; P Rajendran is with DLRL, DRDO, Chandrayanagutta,
Hyderabad 500 005; while Dr K N Rao is with the Mechanical Engineering
Department, College of Engineering, Osmania University, Hyderabad
500 007.
This paper was received on October 28, 2004. Written discussion on this
paper will be entertained till January 31, 2006.
64
For a given tool steel at a given hardness, wear resistance may vary
widely depending on the wear mechanism involved and the heat
treatment used. Among tool steels with widely differing
compositions but identical hardness, wear resistance may vary widely
under identical wear conditions.
In the heat treatment of tool steels the problem of retained austenite
after heat treatment has prevailed since the development of tool
steels. The retained austenite is soft and unstable at lower
temperatures that it is likely to transform into martensite. Freshly
formed martensite is brittle and only tempered martensite is acceptable.
The transformation of austenite into martensite yields 4% volume
expansion causing distortion, which cannot be ignored3. Therefore,
the retained austenite should be transformed to the maximum
possible extent before any component or tool is put into service.
Treating the material after heat treatment at sub-zero or cryogenic
temperatures transforms the retained austenite into martensite.
Meng4 proposed that greater wear resistance can be obtained with
longer soaking periods (~24h) because of the formation of η−carbides
which improves the wear resistance to the maximum possible extent.
MATERIALS
The materials tested are listed in Table 1 and their chemical
composition are given in Table 2. One high speed steel (M1) used for
lathe tools, milling cutters, cutter blades, boring tools, twist drills,
metal cutting saws etc; one constructional steel (EN19) used for axle
shafts, gears, connecting rods, studs, bolts and propeller shaft joint
etc and one chromium hot work steel (H13) used for making cutters;
were selected to study the improvements in wear resistance.
Experiment
Samples of 50 mm length were made ( Figure 1) from standard bar
stock of 8 mm φ -12 mm φ procured locally. The samples were heat
treated separately as per prescribed ASM standards. The samples
were divided into six sets. The first set of samples after heat treatment
and tempering were kept as reference for measuring the
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improvements in wear resistance at different temperature treatments.
The second set of the samples were cooled down to 0°C slowly at a
rate of 0.9 K/min, the third to - 20°C, the fourth to -40°C, the fifth
to -80°C and the sixth to -190°C. All the samples were soaked at the
respective temperatures for 24 h and slowly brought back to room
temperature and retempered.
outer diameter 50mm, running at 200 rpm under a load of 20N.
Each sample was weighed before and after every abrasion period,
using analytical balance with accuracy up to two digits. The analyses
are presented in Tables 3-5, the results are plotted in Figures 4-6 and
summarised in Figure 7.

The wear test apparatus is shown in schematically in Figure 2, while

the weights and other components are shown in Figure 3. Each
sample was abraded for 3 min against a course grinding wheel of

2 kg
weight

1 kg
3 kg
weight
weight

Figure 1 Samples after heat treatment

Weight

Pin Holder
Grinding
wheel

Figure 3 Weight, Grinding wheel and holder

Improvement in wear resistance, %

Temperature, °C
Figure 2 Pin on disc test facility Figure 4 Wear resistance improvement in M1 samples

Vol 86, October 2005 65

 Table 2 Composition of materials selected composition, %
Improvement in wear resistance, %

Material C Mn Si Cr V Mo W
M1 0.85 0.3 0.3 4.0 1.0 8.5 1.5
H13 0.35 0.3 1.0 5.0 1.0 1.5 ---
EN19 0.35 0.65 --- 1.1 --- 0.3 ---

Table 3 Experimental results: M1 samples

Temperature, Initial Final Weight Weight Improvement in

°C weight weight loss loss, % wear resistance
HT 16.80 14.49 2.31 13.75 100
0 20.90 18.78 2.12 10.14 135
- 20 16.55 15.05 1.50 9.06 151
- 40 13.80 12.92 0.88 6.30 218
Temperature, °C - 80 17.68 16.84 0.84 4.75 289
-190 14.72 14.18 0.54 3.60 382
Figure 5 Wear resistance improvement in H13 samples

Table 4 Experimental results: H13 samples

Improvement in wear resistance, %

Temperature, Initial Final Weight Weight Improvement in

°C weight weight loss loss, % wear resistance
HT 22.42 20.21 2.21 9.85 100
0 20.00 18.08 1.92 9.60 103
- 20 28.00 26.40 1.60 5.70 172
- 40 23.83 22.63 1.20 5.03 195
- 80 25.60 24.70 0.90 3.51 280
-190 22.04 21.39 0.65 2.94 335

Table 5 Experimental results: EN19 samples analysis

Temperature, Initial Final Weight Weight Improvement in

°C weight weight loss loss, % wear resistance
HT 32.01 29.99 2.02 6.31 100
Temperature, °C 0 26.13 24.73 1.40 5.35 117
-20 21.67 20.72 0.95 4.38 144
Figure 6 Wear resistance improvement in EN19 samples - 40 30.04 28.91 1.13 3.76 167
- 80 25.12 24.30 0.82 3.26 193
-190 31.94 31.30 0.64 2.00 315
Improvement in wear resistance, %

CONCLUSION

The wear resistance improvement varied from 315% to 382%

depending upon the material tested. Therefore, further investigations
can be continued with any other material to investigate the
improvements in wear resistance by cryogenic treatment.

REFERENCES

1. ASTM, vol 3, pp 421-447.

Temperature, °C
Figure 7 Wear resistance analysis 2. ASM Handbook, vol 4 pp 711-725.

3. D M Lal, S Ranganarayan and A Kalanidhi. ‘Cryogenic Treatment to Augment

Table 1 Materials selected
Wear Resistance of Tool and Die Steels’. Cryogenics International Journal, vol 41,
2001, pp 149-155.
AISI No Material
M1 Molybdenum high speed steel
4. Fanger Meng, et al. ‘Role of Eta-carbide Precipitations in the Wear Resistance,
H13 Chromium/molybdenum hot die steel
Improvement of Fe-12Cr-MoV-1 4C Tool Steels by Cryogenic Treatment.
EN19 Chromium molybdenum (constructional) steel
ISIJ International, vol 34, no 20,1994,pp 205-210.

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