Oscar Zambrano

National Research Council Canada | NRC · Energy, Mining and Environment Research Area

Tool steels are well known to have superior strength and are claimed to have superior wear resistance than conventional steels in several scenarios. However, their behavior under slurry erosion conditions have been seldom studied. To this end, a set of tool steels, primarily from the CPM yV (y = 1, 3, 9, 10, 15) alloy family, was selected to unders...

The running-in period during dry sliding wear might determine the evolution to steady-state wear behaviour. To this end, the running-in period during sliding wear of austenitic stainless steel, AISI 316L stainless steel, and Hadfield steel were studied through the testing pin (flat-ended)-on-disk configuration. The effects of the normal load, slidi...

Slurry erosion can cause severe damages and often constitutes a significant portion of the total production cost in many industries such as oil sands and mining. The most commonly used materials for such applications are metallic materials having a composite microstructure consisting of hard reinforcement phases in a more ductile metal matrix. Typi...

In the present work, the dynamic recrystallization and microstructural evolution of the family of advanced high-strength steels Fe18MnxAl0.74C are studied, varying the aluminum content in 0, 3, 6, and 9 wt pct subjected to hot-forging treatments through three consecutive heating-deformation cycles. For characterization, X-ray diffraction (XRD), Mo¨...

This work investigates the effect of vanadium carbide (VC) content and bulk hardness on the low angle impingement/scouring erosion of tool steels. Five grades of CPM xV (x = 1, 3, 9, 10, and 15) tool steels have been studied using a Coriolis erosion tester with a slurry of 10 wt% AFS 50–70 silica sand in water. The results showed that the scouring...

Alloyed carbon steels used in ground engaging tools (GETs), such as shovel-teeth, can withstand high working loads, but their wear resistance is inadequate for abrasive operations in the mining industry. Different approaches to engineer protective surfaces on GETs for improving wear resistance have been developed over the years, but the effectivene...

The low-stress ASTM-G65 abrasive wear behaviour was studied in a system of high manganese steels Fe-18Mn-xAl-0.7C with aluminium contents of 0, 3, 6 and 9.5% by weight and the results were compared with those of AISI D2 and AISI 9260 steels. By a completely randomized design (CRD), it was determined that the highest wear resistance corresponds to A...

A critical assessment has been performed to determine the stacking fault energy (SFE) of the austenite phase in high manganese steels using X-ray diffraction (XRD). It was found that the SFE varies substantially with the chosen elastic constants. This strong dependence induces substantial errors in the estimated values of the SFE of the austenite a...

The microstructural evolution of the two austenitic alloys Fe–20Mn–3Al–0.7C wt pct and Fe–20Mn–6Al–0.7C wt pct when different thermal and thermomechanical treatments are performed has been studied. To this end, a generic industrial die of 100 ton capacity and a Gleeble 3800 simulator were selected to perform the thermomechanical treatments. A solub...

In the mining and related industries, the abrasion and impact phenomena operate among the chain of ore processing. While abrasion-corrosion and/or erosion-corrosion phenomena in ore processing are relatively well understood, the concurrent operation of abrasion and impact wear is not well comprehended. The distinctive mechanisms and features of abr...

In this study, the sub-surface structure of a railroad crossing made of Hadfield steel was characterized. The microhardness profile and metallographic examination, in addition to XRD, EBSD, and TEM analyses, were conducted on zones near the surface (damaged), where the rolling contact fatigue was operative. It was confirmed that mechanical twinning...

For the first time in the literature, the failure analysis of a sugar cane cutting blade is performed. This mechanical component is of vital importance in the sugar cane industry. However, despite this component failing frequently, very little is known about the causes of failure of these blades and their relationship with the field conditions wher...

The dynamic recrystallization of a Fe-Mn-Si based shape memory is studied for the first time, under constant and variable thermo-mechanical conditions. The effect of strain rate and deformation temperature on the microstructural evolution is investigated, considering that the grain size distribution can reduce or increase drastically the shape memo...

FeMnAlC alloys with high C and Al contents exhibit hardness that could be enhanced drastically with the precipitation of nano κ-carbides through aging and thermomechanical treatments. Nonetheless, information has been scarcely reported on the effect of both treatments on the abrasive wear response of those alloys. Consequently, wear tests were perf...

During the last years, the scientific and industrial community have focused on the astonishing properties of Fe-Mn-Al-C steels. These high advanced steels allow high-density reductions about ~18% lighter than conventional steels, high corrosion resistance, high strength (ultimate tensile strength (UTS) ~1 Gpa) and at the same time ductility above 6...

In this study, three types of abrasives and several types of heat treatments and materials were used to obtain eleven different abrasive/material hardness (Ha/Hm) ratios with the aim of elucidating the effect of the Ha/Hm ratio on the mild-severe wear transition in erosion wear. This effect has seldom been addressed in the erosion wear literature f...

High manganese steels have been extensively studied in recent decades thanks to their astonishing mechanical properties. In particular, high manganese Fe-Mn-Al-C alloys feature an excellent combination of strength and ductility, properties that depend on the main deformation mechanism and therefore are determined by the stacking fault energy (SFE)....

The wear behavior of two high-speed steels and a high-chromium cast iron with cryogenic treatments was evaluated using a pin-on-disc configuration. An ASTM A36 steel disc, oxidized previously in a furnace at 950 °C, was used as a counterbody with the goal of developing an accurate representation of the industrial calamine formed on the surface of s...

A subregular solution thermodynamic model was employed to calculate the stacking fault energy (SFE) in Fe–Mn–Al–C–Si steels with contents of carbon 0.2–1.6 wt.%, manganese 1–35 wt.%, aluminum 1–10 wt.%, and silicon 0.5–4 wt.%. Based on these calculations, temperature-dependent and composition-dependent diagrams were developed in the mentioned compo...

This research analyses the effect of the microstructure of mottled cast iron on tribological behaviour using a high temperature pin-on-disc test with a steel disc oxidised at 1,200 °C ASTM A36 as a counterbody. Three different microstructures were obtained for the mottled cast iron pins by quenching and tempering at 400 °C and 600 °C. The test temp...

Failure analysis of a shaft used in a bridge crane has been carried out. The shaft fractured in the keyway with evidence of fatigue. Chemical analysis, micro-structural characterization, fractography, hardness measurements, and finite element simulation were used for the analysis. The microstructure was predominantly tempered martensite; large amou...