The Brazilian sugar/alcohol sector presented expressive growth in recent years. However, maintenance cost is high due to metallic losses by wear. This paper studies the application of hardfacing by flux cored arc welding on the wear resistance and microstructure of single layer weld beads. Four types of consumable were used: three selfshielded flux cored wires of 1.6 mm diameter of alloys FeCrC, FeCrCNb, FeCrCMoTi and a covered electrode of FeCrC alloy of 4 mm diameter. The base metal was SAE 1020 steel. Test specimens were evaluated using Rubber Wheel Abrasion Test (ASTM G65). The selfshielded flux cored wires were welded in short-circuit transfer mode with the same current and voltage values. Wear evaluation was by mass loss and microstructure analysis by optic microscopy. The results of the trials with Rubber Wheel Test showed that the FeCrCNb alloy presented the largest wear resistance, followed by the covered electrode. The FeCrC+Ti alloy and the FeCrC alloy presented the worst performance. The FeCrC alloy (for both covered electrode and tubular wire) presented microstructure formatted by primary M7C3 carbides distributed in a smaller hardness matrix; the alloy containing Nb presented a similar microstructure apart from its carbides that were mainly NbC. The alloy with Ti and Mo addition presented large titanium primary carbides.
microstructure; abrasive wear; hardfacing; tubular wire
