The effect of counterpart material on the sliding wear of TiAlN coatings deposited by reactive cathodic pulverization

Abstract

This work aims to study the effect of the counterpart materials (100Cr6, Al2O3 and WC-Co) on the tribological Properties of TiAlN thin films deposited on AISI H13 steel substrate by reactive magnetron co-sputtering. The structural characterization of the TiAlN films, performed by X-ray diffraction, showed (220) textured fcc crystalline structure. The values of hardness and elastic modulus obtained by nanoindentation were 27 GPa and 420 GPa, respectively, which resulted in films with a relatively high resistance to plastic deformation. Ball-on-disk sliding tests were performed using normal loads of 1 N and 3 N, and 0.10 m/s of tangential velocity. The wear coefficient of the films was determined by measuring the worn area using profilometry every 1000
cycles. The mechanical properties and the chemical stability of the counterpart material, debris formation and the contact stress influences the friction and the wear behavior of the studied tribosystems. Increasing the hardness of the counterpart decreases the coefficient of friction (COF) due to lower counterpart material transference and tribofilm formation, which is able to support the contact pressure. High shear stress concentration at the coating/substrate interface was reported for higher load promoting failure of the film-substrate system for all tribopairs.