'Faculty of Medicine Prince of Songkla University'
Abstract
Base-cutter blades operate close to the soil during sugarcane harvesting, causing a high wear rate. The present study
aims to improve the wear resistance of the blades with an economical surface treatment, so wire arc thermal spray was applied
with two alternative types of cored wires, namely chrome nickel amorphous (AM) and titanium tungsten carbide (TiW). The
microstructure study showed that AM coating contained an amorphous structure, while the TiW coating appeared to have a
relatively non-homogeneous structure containing W and Ti carbide dispersion resulting in a higher hardness (876.40 HV0.1) than
that of AM coating (814.48 HV0.1). However, after dry sand rubber testing, the AM coating exhibited nearly 2 times lower wear
rate than that of the uncoated base-cutter blades or TiW coated ones. Therefore, the arc sprayed AM coating can be an
economical approach to extend the service life of the blades
