Fretting Wear Performance of PVD Thin Films

Nowadays, most surface treatments are realized through vapor deposition techniques as thin hard coatings to guarantee high surface hardness, low friction coefficient, and improve wear resistance. Several experimental investigations have led to the development of multilayer coatings in preference to the traditional TiN coating. In the current chapter, research was conducted on the fretting wear of (TiAlCN/TiAlN/TiAl) and (TiAlZrN/TiAlN/TiAl) multilayer coatings deposited by reactive DC (magnetron sputtering) of Ti-Al and Ti-Al-Zr alloys on AISI4140 steel. Fretting wear tests (20,000 cycles at 5 Hz) were conducted in ambient conditions, where the interaction between normal load and displacement amplitude determined the fretting regime. The influence of the normal load and displacement amplitude on the coefficients of instantaneous coefficient of friction and stabilized coefficient of friction is different in the two multilayer, coated steels. The PVD coating (TiAlZrN/TiAlN/TiAl) reduces the friction. The worn volume of coated AISI4140 steel is sensitive to normal load and displacement amplitude. The relation between worn volume and cumulative dissipated energy was established for the two coated steels. The energetic fretting wear coefficients were also determined. A multilayer (TiAlZrN/TiAlN/TiAl) coating has a low energetic wear coefficient.