Applications of Taguchi Design Method to Study Wear Behaviour of Sintered and Hardened AISI 4140 Powder Metallurgy Steel

In this study the American Iron and Steel Institute(AISI) 4140 steel produced by Powder Metallurgy route. The specimen dimensions were maintained as per the standard dimensions needed for conducting the wear test by using the pin on disc wear analysis. The hardness of the AISI 4140 Powder Metallurgy steels was improved by quenching process. The quenching process was carried out at the temperature of 9000 C for 1hr and 2hr respectively. The wear resistance model for AISI 4140 P/M steel was developed in terms of quenching time, applied load, sliding distance and sliding speed using the Taguchi method. The wear test was carried out and evaluated the sliding wear behavior such as wear rate of sintered and quenched AISI 4140 Steels by using pin on disc wear tester. The orthogonal array and signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio are employed to investigate the optimal testing parameters. The experimental results demonstrate that the quenching time was the major parameter among the controllable factors that influence the weight loss of AISI 4140 P/M steel. For AISI 4140 P/M steel, the quenching time had the greatest effect on the wear, followed by applied load. The sliding distance and sliding speed had a much lower effect. The optimal combination of the testing parameters could be determined.