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.
Different fretting tests of thin steel wires under different conditions (loads, strokes, number of cycles and mean pressures) were performed. The wires used had 0.45 mm in diameter and the material was a cold-drawn eutectoid carbon steel (0.8% C) with a tensile strength over 2800 MPa. The tests were carried out with 90° "crossed cylinders" configuration varying the stroke, normal load and testing time (number of cycles). Afterwards the volumetric wear was obtained using surface profilometry with diamond stylus.
With a classical study of the coefficient of wear with respect to the sliding distance, the results show that the wear coefficient increases with normal load and stroke, consequently, for the same sliding distance, the wear produced was higher when the load and/or stroke is increased. In this work, the coefficient of wear is decreasing continuously as the test is running. In order to analyze better the wear behaviour, another method, in which the volumetric wear is compared with respect to the Archard's loading factor, is proposed. As result of this method, two distinctive behaviours were detected; one corresponds to the running-in period with a more aggressive wear behaviour and the second one to the stable steady state period. In all the tests the running-in period was similar with regard to the wear rates but in the stable period the wear rates were increasing with higher loads or strokes.
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.
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.
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.
The wear behaviour of thin steel wires has been analyzed under oscillating sliding conditions in crossed cylinders contact geometry. The focus of this analysis was the influence of the crossing angle between the wires on the wear. The wires used had 0.45 mm in diameter and the material was cold-drawn eutectoid carbon steel (0.8% C) with a tensile strength higher than 2800 MPa. Two different types of tests were carried out, the first one representing the influence of the crossing angle for a constant load and the second one representing the influence of the crossing angle with constant contact pressure. In the first type of tests it was seen that as the contact angle decreases the contact pressure decreases too and hence less energy specific wear resistance is observed. As a consequence less wear is produced, thus increasing the life of the wires. In the second type of tests it was seen that with constant contact pressure but different crossing angles, nearly the same energy specific wear resistance was observed. This points at an identical wear behaviour in both type of tests but with a running-in and a steady state period as two different wear periods. The tests showed that the running in period may play an important role in the overall wear particle generation and hence the wear occurring in the steady state period is rather mild.