Both erosive and abrasive wear are common in mechanical systems and moving components in industrial production. Once they occur in machine parts, the task of breakdown maintenance should be carried out, leading to high production costs. Previous research has shown that high-chromium cast iron (HCCI), a commonly used wear-resistant material, experiences repeated particle impacts that break up the chromium carbides (M₇C₃) on its surface, resulting in the formation of fine fracture carbides. It has been reported that erosion wear occurs progressively due to the shedding of protrusions caused by the plastic deformation of the material’s matrix. Thus, the erosion wear characteristics of a material are strongly affected by carbides, which come in various shapes and can affect resistance. This research examined the orientation of carbides on the microstructure and their effects on erosion and abrasion properties. The wear tests showed that 27 wt.% chromium content high-alloy cast irons showed the best wear resistance properties due to the coarse strips of M₇C₃ carbides that effectively suppressed wear propagation. Additionally, the M₂C carbides crystallized around the M₇C₃ carbides which support the M₇C₃ carbide to reduce plastic deformation and carbide peel-out. Consequently, the wear resistance properties of this material are significantly improved.

Recently, high-Cr multicomponent white cast iron after quenching is known to have superior abrasive-wear resistance. However, this material is prone to cracking due to the precipitation of very hard carbides resulting in very limited application. However, the cracking tendency might be reduced by appropriate tempering temperature. Therefore, the three-body abrasive-wear resistance of 18 wt.% and 27 wt.% Cr based on 3 wt.% Mo, W, V, and Co with different temperatures of tempering was studied. These are abbreviated as 18Cr MCCI and 27Cr MCCI. The tempering temperature range was 653–813 K with an interval of 20 K after the quenching process. The quenched specimens were used as comparison materials, and three tempered specimens were selected. Thus, there are quenched (Q), quenched-tempered at low temperature (T_LT), quenched-tempered at medium temperature (T_MT), and quenched-tempered at high temperature (T_HT) specimens. From the results, it can be known that the wear resistance of the material decreases as Cr percentage and tempering temperature increase. Therefore, the 18Cr MCCI Q has better wear performance than specimens of other conditions. Yet, different results occur in the group of 27Cr MCCI. The material is more wear-resistant after tempering despite the lower hardness of the material. This might be owing to the higher fracture toughness of the M₇C₃ carbide, which is higher after the tempering process compared with quenching only. Therefore, it can be said that it is important to maintain the hardness of the material to achieve better wear resistance. However, in materials containing large M₇C₃ carbides, the fracture toughness of carbides should also be considered.

Since it is well known in the literature that transition metals can form extremely hard carbides and effectively strengthen a material’s matrix, recently, some of them, such as V, Nb, Cr, Mo, and W, have been simultaneously added to cast iron. In addition, it is common to add Co to cast iron to strengthen the material’s matrix. However, the wear resistance of cast iron can also be considerably affected by the addition of C, which is rarely discussed in the literature by the experts. Therefore, the effect of C content (1.0; 1.5; 2.0 wt.%) on the abrasive wear behavior of 5 wt.% V/Nb, Cr, Mo, W, and Co alloys was investigated in this study. An evaluation was conducted using a rubber wheel abrasion testing machine in accordance with ASTM G65 with silica sand (1100 HV; 300 μm) as abrasive particles. The results show that plural carbides (MC, M₂C, and M₇C3) precipitated on the microstructure of the material, which is not unlike the behavior of other types of carbides as the quantity of C increases. The hardness and wear resistance properties of 5V-5Cr-5Mo-5W-5Co-Fe and 5Nb-5Cr-5Mo-5W-5Co-Fe multicomponent cast alloys increased as the quantity of C increased. However, we observed no significant difference in the hardness between the two materials with the same C additions, while 5Nb presented better wear resistance properties compared to the 5V sample due to the larger size of NbC compared to VC. Therefore, it can be determined that, in this study, the size of the carbide plays a more important role than its volume fraction and hardness.

It has been evaluated the relationship between the microstructure and three-body abrasive wear behavior of high-chromium (18 and 27 mass % Cr) based (3 mass % each of V, Mo, W, and Co) multicomponent white cast iron materials (high-Cr MWCIs). It was also compared to MWCI to determine the service life of the materials. The results indicate that the microstructure of the material is composed of mainly martensite matrix and different types of precipitated carbides. The wear resistances of both the high-Cr MWCIs are higher than MWCI owing to the higher hardness (4–18% increment in hardness), although they contain fewer carbide types. The carbide volume fraction of high-Cr MWCI increases with increase in the Cr content, but the hardness decreases, leading to a reduction in wear resistance. This is because the transition metal significantly consumes C atoms to form more eutectic carbides during solidification, which is exacerbated by the depletion of C in the matrix during heat treatment to form coarser secondary carbides. This means that increasing the addition of Cr does not always lead to an increase in the hardness or wear resistance of the material. In addition, the wear resistance of 27Cr MWCI after tempering (wear rate: 8.80 × 10⁻⁵ g/m) is higher than that after quenching (wear rate: 9.25 × 10⁻⁵ g/m) owing to the increase in the fracture toughness of M₇C₃ carbide. This is contrary to the case of 18Cr-MWCI; the wear resistance after tempering (wear rate: 5.29 × 10⁻⁵ g/m) is worse than that after quenching (wear rate: 5.11 × 10⁻⁵ g/m) owing to the reduction in hardness as a stress-relieving effect.