Hot severe sliding abrasion is a challenging issue with complex interrelationships. Sliding abrasion consists of a counter body moving relative against the surface of the base body. The counter body has a significantly higher hardness and wear resistance than the base body, making the wear rate in a given tribological system hinge on the properties of the base body. The wear rate of the base body however, depends on different factors. On the one hand, there are system specific parameters like temperature and atmosphere and on the other hand there are material-specific parameters like lattice structure or hard phase distribution. Especially the lattice structure governs the resistance to severe sliding abrasion at high temperatures. In past studies it could be shown, that materials with fcc-lattice show a significantly better reaction to high temperature abrasive grooving than materials with bcc-lattice, due to their much more stable hot hardness and work hardening capability, which counteracts softening mechanisms. Furthermore, the work hardening capability and deformation behaviour of fcc-materials is closely related to the stacking fault energy, indicating that there might be correlations between the microstructural parameters of single-phase fcc-materials and hot wear behaviour.

The present work focuses on uncovering structure-property connections between the high temperature severe sliding abrasion of single-phase fcc-materials and their specific microstructural parameters, assessed with X-Ray diffraction at elevated temperatures and supported by electron backscatter diffraction imaging of the wear-affected subsurface. This enabled a more detailed understanding of the deformation behaviour of fcc-materials at higher temperatures as well as its specific influence on the hot wear performance. It was found, that the stacking fault energy effectively determines the severe sliding abrasion. Particularly promising is the potential use of this knowledge to design tailor-made alloys for application in virtually any tribological system.