The friction and wear behaviour of SiC, Si3N4 and SiC/Si3N4 composite ceramics were investigated with oscillating sliding (gross slip fretting) at room temperature. The influence of counter body material and the humidity of the surrounding air was studied with a ball-on-disc configuration with different ball materials (1000Cr6, Al2O3 SiC and Si3N4). The effect of RH on friction is marginal with exception of SiC (low friction) as counter body material. The wear behaviour, however, is strongly affected by humidity, showing inverse trends for different counter body materials. Consequently, the wear behaviour of a tribo couple can be improved by selecting an adequate mating material. The results reveal the necessity to control RH in tribological tests. For estimation of the performance of tribo couples under varying environmental conditions, a variation of RH is required. In tribo couples with single phase SiC, either as ball or disc, the tribological behaviour of the system is dominated by SiC. The friction behaviour of the composite material is in between the behaviour of the two single phase materials, Si3N4 and SiC, whereas the wear behaviour is very similar to that of single phase Si3N4.
The high temperature tribological performance of tetrahedral amorphous carbon coatings has been analyzed at elevated temperatures up to 250 °C in air against three different counterbody materials-steel 100Cr6, a-alumina and silicon nitride. The results show that the counterbody material influences the friction and wear behavior and therefore coating life time strongly. This effect is well known for these coatings at room temperature under dry environmental conditions, equivalent to conditions above 100 °C when water molecules desorb from the surface. However, the sharp difference in tribological performance between silicon nitride on the one hand and alumina and steel on the other hand cannot be understood in this context. Analyzing the friction behavior during the running-in phase, it is evident that only alumina and steel form a stable interface with constant low friction and relatively low wear rates. Silicon nitride forms an unstable interface with fluctuating COF and relatively high wear rates due to its own inherent tendency to tribo-oxidation.
An extended study on tribological properties of carbon nitride coatings under oscillating sliding conditions has been carried out. The coatings were prepared by reactive magnetron sputtering with graphite target using nitrogen as reactive gas in an argon/nitrogen atmosphere during the deposition process to deposit carbon nitride, CNx. Coating thickness was about 2 µm. A 200300 nm thick Ti interlayer was used to enhance adhesion. The nitrogen flow during the deposition was varied to control the amount of nitrogen in the coating. Maximum amount of N-content was about 28 at%, achieved at a maximum N2 flow rate. Other deposition parameters were target to substrate distance, substrate temperature during deposition and bias voltage. The results show a large variation of hardness depending mainly on the nitrogen content and bias voltage. Higher bias voltage produced harder coatings as did lower nitrogen content. The tribological properties were tested unlubricated and lubricated by paraffin oil under gross slip fretting conditions at room temperature against alumina as counter material. Most coatings, but not all, showed a more or less pronounced dependence of wear on relative humidity with wear rates from 10-5 to 10-6 mm3/Nm. The best coatings with regard to a low wear rate and the least dependence upon relative humidity were carbon nitride coatings deposited at elevated substrate temperatures up to 350 °C. The wear resistance of these coatings was increased under the most severe conditions by about one order of magnitude. The results are discussed on the basis of a transfer layer formation. The results show clearly that wear is not significantly correlated to the coating hardness which itself is strongly dependant on the nitrogen content. However, under lubricated conditions with paraffin oil, wear rates were generally very low with wear coefficients at about 10-8 mm3/Nm.
Three different contact geometries, ball on disk and two different settings with crossed cylinders have been investigated with regard to the agreement of the results of the tribological quantities determined by each method. The material combination was α-alumina as upper specimen and steel 100Cr6 as lower specimen. For each of the contact geometries 5 independent measurements were carried out and evaluated independently. The agreement between the single results of coefficient of friction and the coefficient of system wear as well as between the different groups and conditions are good. Largest scatter of the results were found in the dry air regime where both friction and wear depend strongly on the relative humidity. However, comparison of the absolute values of the coefficient of wear between the ball on disk contact geometry on one side and the 2 crossed cylinder contact geometries on the other side reveals a significant difference in that the ball on disk results are lower by about a factor of two. The results document also a high degree of repeatability of single wear tests.
Safety and reliability are the major challenges to face for the development and acceptance of hydrogen technology. It is therefore crucial to study deeply material compatibility, in particular polymer materials that are directly in contact with hydrogen. This paper presents an experimental study on the fretting wear behavior of two types of cross-linked hydrogenated acrylonitrile butadiene rubbers against 316L steel ball in hydrogen environment. Furthermore, aging experiments were conducted for 7 days under static conditions in 100 MPa hydrogen. the influences of hydrogen pressure as well as the aging exposure on the fretting behavior are discussed by means of surface analyses along with the material properties.
Main focus was on the deposition of carbon nanofibers (CNFs) onto the hard nanocomposite (nc-Ti1 - xAlxN)/(a-Si3N4) (nACo®) coating surface and the investigation of the structure and tribological properties of CNFs. The alcohol chemical vapor deposition (ACCVD) method was employed to prepare CNFs and the deposition temperatures were 600 and 700 °C, respectively. Prior to the CNF deposition, Ni catalyst was deposited onto the nACo® surface using the magnetron sputtering. The influence of the deposition temperature on the carbon nanofibers structure was investigated by Raman spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The higher order degree of CNF structure is observed with increasing deposition temperature. Tribological tests were carried out under fretting contact conditions against Al2O3 ball. It is shown that the coefficient of friction (COF) decreases from 1.0 to 1.2 for the clean nACo® surface to 0.2–0.4 for the CNF layers deposited on the nACo® surface. The roughness of the nACo® surface was varied and a higher durability of the CNF layers deposited on the rougher nACo® surface is found.