Feasibility of new ladle-treated Hadfield steel for mining purposes

A debate has arisen over the possibility of using a new ladle-treated Hadfield steel instead of conventional heat-treated Hadfield steel in mining applications. This debate might be solved by identifying the differences between the mechanical properties and strain-hardening properties of conventional heat-treated Hadfield steel and its counterpart ladle-treated Hadfield steel. Tensile and compres-sion tests demonstrated that the ductility of ladle-treated Hadfield steel is similar to that of conventional heat-treated steel. However, the strain-hardening property of the ladle-treated Hadfield steel is almost two times higher than that of the heat-treated Hadfield steel. The results of this study demonstrate that the improvement of the strain-hardening behavior is attributable to the low stacking-fault energy of the main austenite matrix, which results from the high segregation coefficient of carbon and manganese solutes of the main austenite matrix into the new eutectic phase. Superior wear abrasion resistance is a potential consequence of different strain-hardening properties under low and high loads.