Tribological improvement of titanium alloy surfaces through texturing and TiAlN coating

Titanium alloys are characterised by poor wear resistance properties and its utilisation has been excessive in non-tribological applications. Surface texturing is a renowned and effective means of surface modification technique to improve the tribological properties of sliding surfaces. In the present work, modification of titanium alloy surfaces was done by lapping and laser surface texturing. The modified surfaces were coated by titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN) nanocomposite coating with chromium as interlayer by cathodic arc physical vapour deposition system. The adhesion characteristics of the coatings were evaluated using a scratch tester and recognised that coating adherence has been improved by 8% through texturing. The effect of normal load on friction and wear characteristics were examined and discussed. The present work is aimed for investigating the bonding strength, friction coefficient and wear behaviour of bilayer composite coating over modified titanium alloy substrates under dry sliding contact condition.