Tribology Transactions, 2025 (SCI-Expanded)
This study concentrates on the effects of several tempering processes both before and after the deep cryogenic process on the microstructural, hardness, and tribological characteristics of D3-type steel. The treatment contains hardening at 950 °C for 40 min, tempering at 250 °C for 2 h, and deep cryogenic treatment at −196 °C for 18 h. A ball-on-disk wear tester conducts wear tests against the aluminum oxide (Al2O3) ball under a load providing 1.9 GPa Hertzian contact pressure, simulating severe wear conditions. Double tempering-cryogenic treatment-double tempering (DTCDT) was the best heat treatment combination. There was a substantial decrease in wear rate in DTCDT samples by up to 80.3% owing to their homogeneously distributed finer carbide formation.