## 1 Introduction  
One of the best-known high-manganese alloys is Hadfield cast steel. It is named after the British metallurgist [PERSON], who invented this material in 1882. It is commonly used for the production of components such as mill linings, hammers, jaws, and cones of crushers, parts of construction machines, and components used in the energy industry. It is an alloy with high wear resistance, but only under dynamic loads. When a component made of Hadfield cast steel is operated under low-load conditions, e.g., sand abrasion, its wear resistance is comparable to that of carbon cast steel [1, 2, 3]. Figure 1 compares the abrasive wear response in the Miller test of surface-hardened Hadfield cast steel and carbon cast steel with 0.4% C content. Figure 1: Abrasive wear response of surface-hardened Hadfield cast steel vs. carbon cast steel containing 0.4% C [own research]. To improve the abrasive wear response of castings made from high-manganese steel, Hadfield steel with the additions of carbide-forming elements such as chromium or molybdenum is used [1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8]. The research described in [4] shows changes in the microstructure of Hadfield cast steel with the addition of 1.4% Cr. The change in chemical composition changes the microstructure and leads to the precipitation of increased amounts of complex carbides not only at the grain boundaries but also in the interior of castings. Figure 2 shows the microstructure of such cast steel. The precipitation of a large number of carbides causes high internal stresses, which can lead to crack formation in castings during cooling in foundry mold. Solution heat treatment of castings made from alloys with increased chromium content does not guarantee obtaining a purely austenitic structure. It is also doubtful if this structure could be obtained by other measures applied, such as higher austenitizing temperature and longer time of this treatment [4]. Figure 3 shows an example of the microstructure of Hadfield cast steel with the addition of 1.4% Cr, where after solution heat treatment at 1200 \({}^{\circ}\)C and annealing for 80 min, an austenitic matrix with undissolved carbides at the grain boundaries was obtained. In his own unpublished study, the author has demonstrated that the addition of chromium in an amount of 1.4% causes in the Miller test a two times lower weight loss of the tested samples compared to Hadfield cast steel with typical chemical composition subjected to standard heat treatment. The wide use of Hadfield cast steel in industry drives the constant search for modifications of its properties through changes in the chemical composition. For example, the research described in [5; 6] shows changes in the microstructure and abrasive wear resistance in the Miller test of Hadfield cast steel with the addition of 5.5% V. Owing to the change in chemical composition, in the solution heat-treated test castings, an austenitic matrix with faceted vanadium carbides evenly distributed in this matrix was obtained. Figure 4 shows the microstructure of this alloy. The uniform distribution of vanadium carbides in the alloy matrix improves the abrasive wear resistance in the Miller test at least two times in the as-cast condition and three times after solution heat treatment. Figure 5 compares the abrasive wear response of Hadfield cast steel in the as-cast condition and after solution heat treatment with that of high-manganese cast steel containing 5.5% V.  
Figure 2: As-cast microstructure of Hadfield steel with the addition of chromium (1.4%); austenitic matrix with precipitates of lamellar alloyed cement; Nital etching, [4]. Research works on the properties of Hadfield cast steel with the addition of titanium are also available. Studies [7; 8] show changes in the microstructure of Hadfield cast steel containing titanium (0.4-2.5% Ti) and in its abrasive wear resistance in the Miller test.