Investigation of the microstructure and mechanical performance of bimetal components fabricated using CMT-based wire arc additive manufacturing

Abstract Traditionally, wear-resistant components are manufactured by cladding hard facing material on the base metal. This production process is typically complicated, expensive, and time-consuming. This study proposes a method of fabricating components with high wear resistance requirements utilizing cold metal transfer based wire and arc additive manufacturing with hard facing welding wire as the consumable material. Thin-walled and block components were manufactured by depositing a combination of a low alloy steel, ER80S-G, and a hard facing material, MF6–55GP. Microstructure characterization and mechanical properties (hardness, tensile and Block-on-Ring wear test) were performed. The results revealed that the ER80S-G/MF6–55GP bimetal components were able to be fused with no detectable defects near the border. As the deposited height was increased, the residual stress also increased; this internal residual stress combined with the external tensile load lead to a very low tensile strength of 447.79 ± 24.32 MPa of the ER80S-G/MF6-55GP/ER80S-G sandwich structure. The microstructures, constituent phases, and hardness distributions differ greatly among the layers due to their different thermal histories. The wear weight loss varies as the load condition changes for both the MF6-55G and Cr12MoV steels. Compared to Cr12MoV, MF6-55GP weld metal exhibits better wear resistance at higher loads in dry sliding wear tests.