Mining, construction, metallurgy, electricity, agriculture, tooling, equipment manufacturing and other industries have a large number of material crushing and grinding processes, and there is a huge demand for wear-resistant materials. In recent years, with the rapid development of the world economy, the requirements for the performance of wear-resistant materials have become higher and higher. Traditional metal wear-resistant materials (such as high manganese steel and high chromium cast iron) have deficiencies in hardness, strength and toughness synergy, and are increasingly unable to meet the requirements for high-performance wear-resistant materials. Ceramic-reinforced metal-based composite materials have gradually become one of the development directions of new high-performance wear-resistant composite materials because they have both the high hardness of ceramics and the excellent strength and toughness of metal matrices, and can adjust the performance according to needs (designability). Since the 1990s, a lot of research on ceramic/steel-based wear-resistant composite materials has been carried out at home and abroad, especially in Titanium carbide cermet and WC particle-reinforced steel-based wear-resistant materials, which have been widely used. As for ceramic/steel-based wear-resistant composite materials, WC, TiC cermet, Al2O3, ZTA, etc. are commonly used reinforcing ceramics with good wear resistance. Table 1 compares the relevant properties and costs of these ceramics. Compared with carbide ceramics such as WC and titanium carbide inserts, Al2O3 and ZTA have similar hardness and wear resistance, but have great cost advantages, thus becoming the main ceramic reinforcing phase of structural ceramic/steel wear-resistant composite materials in recent years.
