Over the years, fretting has been a leading cause of fuel failures for water cooled nuclear reactors. Implementation of liquid lead coolant increases the need for fretting and corrosion-resistant materials. Fe–10Cr–4Al alloy has shown good resistance to thermal aging, oxidation, liquid metal corrosion, and embrittlement in liquid lead environment. The performance of Fe-10Cr-4Al under fretting wear conditions has not been studied previously. This work aims to investigate the fretting wear and friction behaviour of self-mated Fe-10Cr-4Al alloy at varying temperatures, in the presence of a reducing gas environment and liquid lead. The results show that an increase in test temperature from RT to 550 °C decreases the coefficient of friction and promotes the formation of Cr and Fe oxide third body layer. At high temperature in reducing gas atmosphere, the initial plastic deformation and severe adhesion leads to early seizure. Presence of liquid lead has a lubricating effect and allows a third body layer to form on worn surfaces. A detailed description of the initial wear mechanisms of Fe-10Cr-4Al alloy and friction levels under various conditions provides a base for further investigation of this alloy for long-duration fretting wear.

Additive manufacturing (AM) of ferrous alloys has achieved a technological maturity level that allows for the production of high-performance steel components. Among these alloys, tool steels and maraging steels can be used in die manufacturing for different hot forming processes as both materials have good mechanical properties and thermal stability. In recent years, several works have successfully produced these alloys through selective laser melting, focusing on the optimization and characterization of their microstructure and mechanical properties. However, few studies look into the tribological aspects of these newly produced materials and even fewer consider high temperature friction and wear performance. Therefore, there is a need to understand the high temperature tribological response of tool materials produced by additive manufacturing. In this context, the aim of this work is to investigate the tribological behavior of a tool steel and a maraging steel, both produced by selective laser melting, at different elevated temperatures. A conventionally produced tool steel was used as reference. A reciprocating sliding tribometer was used to perform tests at 40 °C, 200 °C and 400 °C. The counter-body was a WC-Co cemented carbide. Friction and wear of the AM tool steel and reference tool steel were very similar, thus no signs of the AM route having an impact on the tribological behavior were observed. Both tool steels showed reduced wear volume with increasing temperature, while the opposite was observed for their respective WC-Co counter-bodies. Higher temperature also resulted in increased amount of W transferred onto the tool steel wear scars. AM maraging steel showed higher and more unstable friction level, as well as a much larger wear volume at all temperatures; material transfer onto WC-Co was observed at certain temperatures. Overall, tribolayer formation (or lack thereof) was the dominant aspect in the tribological responses.

As hydrogen reduces the fatigue life of 100Cr6 bearing steel significantly, extensive research on the interaction of hydrogen with 100Cr6 is necessary. This study investigated the influence of rolling/sliding tribotesting performed on a micro-pitting-rig on the hydrogen absorption and trapping behaviour of 100Cr6 bearing steel. Thermal desorption mass spectrometry was used to compare the hydrogen desorption spectra of 100Cr6 samples after tribological tests and static heated oil-immersion tests to untested reference samples. The approach was chosen to further understand the influence of both microstructural deformation as well as steel-oil contact on the hydrogen absorption and trapping behaviour of 100Cr6. The tribological test showed a stable friction behaviour and mild wear which was dominated by local plastic deformation of surface asperities. Despite the mild wear, a change in de-trapping temperatures was found for tribotested samples compared to oil-immersed and untested reference samples. This finding indicates that even mild tribotesting conditions alter the hydrogen trapping behaviour of 100Cr6 bearing steel.

A better understanding about the rolling contact fatigue and micropitting performance of machine component surfaces lubricated with environmentally friendly lubricants is critical to designing and further formulating new lubricants intended to be used in rolling–sliding contacts such as those found in gear and bearing applications. In this work, the frictional behaviour and rolling contact fatigue (RCF) performance of DLC, Cr/a-WC:H/a-C:H and a-C:Cr coatings under glycerol-based lubrication in rolling sliding contact conditions have been investigated. Traction maps, Stribeck curves, and fatigue plots have been generated by using a micropitting test rig (MPR). The initiation and progression of micropitting was monitored by means of white light optical interferometry and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Results indicated that glycerol-based lubricants exhibited a significant friction reduction as the hydrodynamic effect is enhanced at higher rolling-speeds. Under boundary lubrication the friction coefficient was significantly higher compared to the values obtained with a commercial mineral-based transmission oil. Compared to uncoated steel surfaces, DLC coatings effectively reduced the volume loss and micropitting progression. Irrespective of the coating thickness, DLC showed an excellent tribological behaviour when the base lubricant favours the onset of mild-wear, over micropitting. When the lubricant formulation favoured the onset of micropitting, the coatings tended to prematurely fail due to debonding from the substrate, and local micro-spallation. The experiments demonstrated that friction reduction does not necessarily correspond with a reduction of micropitting.

The increasing interest in liquid metal cooled nuclear reactors provides technical and scientific challenges such as the understanding, prevention, and prediction of the degradation of materials in liquid lead. Critical components include the fuel rods, heat exchanger tubes, and pump impellers. These functional elements are exposed to mechanical loading (up to 40 MPa), high temperatures (450–550 °C), and fluid-induced vibrations (up to 25 Hz). Under such conditions, fretting wear occurs between e.g., the spacer wire and the outer surface of the fuel or heat exchanger tubes. This work is aimed to establish a laboratory-scale fretting wear test setup and develop test methodology to enable systematic material characterisation in liquid metal environments. The results obtained by using the described methodology indicate that adhesive wear is the dominant degradation mechanism, and 316L stainless steel shows a higher coefficient of friction but a lower wear volume/tribolayer volume compared to 100Cr6 bearing steel. These results are in agreement with those reported in open literature and demonstrates the suitability of the presented method for conducting fretting tests and analysis for various materials and contact configurations in liquid lead environment.

In hot stamping of aluminium, the need for efficient methods to evaluate, compare, and rank lubricants based on their tribological performance is critical in the early stages of selection. Pilot and simulative testing can be costly, time-consuming, and complex, making it inefficient for initial benchmarking. This work aims to develop a test methodology to assess lubricant performance for hot stamping under key operating conditions without fully simulating the forming process. The proposed method distinguishes the impact of temperature on lubricant degradation, friction, wear response, and cleanability. The tests utilised a conventional hot work tool steel and a 6010S aluminium alloy with two commercially available lubricants: a polymeric lubricant and a lubricant containing graphite. The tribological tests involved a reciprocating, sliding flat-on-flat configuration at two temperatures (100 °C and 300 °C). The methodology showed that the graphite-containing lubricant exhibited over a four times lower friction coefficient than the polymer-based lubricant at 10 wt.% concentration and 300 °C. At 100 °C, both lubricants provide lubrication and can be cleaned, but increasing temperature led to a significant decline of both aspects. The observed temperature range where the lubricants degrade was between 120 °C and 170 °C.

In recent years, additive manufacturing (AM) of metallic materials has achieved the production of virtually fully dense parts, extending the range of potential applications. There is a growing interest in the use of AM to produce forming tools for hot stamping. The possibilities of locally tailoring the die material to tackle wear challenges and producing more complex geometries to improve die cooling are key-features driving that interest. However, there is a lack of knowledge concerning the tribological behavior of AM materials, particularly at high temperature, as well as the influence surface finishing processes after additive manufacturing. The aim of this study is to investigate the high temperature friction and wear behavior of a tool steel, produced by selective laser melting, within the context of hot forming of AlSi-coated boron steel. A high temperature strip drawing tribometer was used to perform sliding tests at 600 °C and 700 °C. Three different surface finishes were used for the AM samples: ground, milled and shot-blasted. A conventionally produced steel with the same chemical composition and a ground surface finish was used as a reference. At 600 °C, a similar stable coefficient of friction of 0.4 was observed for both materials and all surface topographies. At 700 °C, all tests resulted in a sudden increase in friction up to 0.9 due to local rupture of the AlSi-coating, severe material transfer and ploughing. The wear mechanisms observed for the ground surfaces, both AM and reference tool steel, were a combination of adhesive material transfer and abrasive material removal that promotes material pile-up, resulting in wedge formation on the tool steel surface. The characteristic wedge formation was not common in the milled surface. This is attributed to strain-hardening and topographical features from the finishing process. For the shot-blasted AM surface, deformation and flattening of the large asperities was observed, as well as material transfer. Subsurface deformation associated with high adhesion during sliding was observed, mainly for the ground surfaces. The milled surface resulted in the least amount of tool steel transfer onto the counter body, while the shot-blasted one resulted in the largest amount. AM and reference ground tool steel showed very similar friction and wear behavior in this tribosystem.