Effect Of Surface Treatment On Abrasive Wear Resistance Of Seeder Coulter Flap

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the surface condition of the coulters of a Poznaniak mechanical seeder working in a sand medium on their abrasive wear resistance. Two types of coulter flap surface treatments were performed. The first treatment method was flame spraying, performed with the use of Eutalloy 10112 powder and other method was laser surface modification consisting in remelting a piece of the coulter flap tip by means of TRUMPF’s CO2 molecular laser. The study involved the use of a purpose-built laboratory test stand dedicated to testing wear in a sandy medium. The study revealed that surface treatment changes surface microstructure and thus improves its hardness by 1.5 to 3 times, which translates into two- to six-fold improvement in wear resistance per hectare of cultivated field. Laser surface modification is more economical than thermal spraying and that the coulter flap surface area modified by thermal spraying was much greater than in the case of laser remelting, and finally that the average wear measured as a weight loss of tested coulters was comparable, one can conclude that in the analyzed context laser surface modification will probably prove more efficient than flame spraying. The study showed that there exist ready-to-use technologies for improving operational performance and delaying terminal wear.