Investigation of Tribo-Corrosion Behaviors of SLM-Printed CX Stainless Steel under Different Loads

CX stainless steel, produced through selective laser melting technology, exhibits a predominance of martensite with minor austenite. The fine-grained structure of CX stainless steel promote corrosion resistance, while a high density of dislocations and precipitates are unfavorable for resisting corrosion but beneficial to wear resistance. This research investigates the wear and tribo-corrosion behaviors of CX stainless steel under different loads. The contributions of corrosion, wear, and their interaction to the volume loss are calculated, and the failure mechanisms of CX stainless steel under varying loads are analyzed. It is indicated that with an increase in loads, the contributions of the corrosion-wear interaction (ΔV) to the volume loss decrease, and those of pure wear (Vw) become predominant. The additional wear caused by corrosion (Vcw) grows with the increasing load, due to the formation of “corrosion micro-cells” and collapsed pits. In the case of pure frictional wear, abrasive wear and fatigue wear are the dominant failure mechanisms. For the tribo-corrosion, the dominant failure mechanisms are abrasive wear, fatigue wear, and corrosive wear. With increasing loads, the failure mechanism of tribo-corrosion transitions from abrasive wear to fatigue wear.