Wear behaviour of duplex (PN+PVD) treated layers produced on X42CR13 steel

Abstract

Wear, corrosion and fatigue are among the most important mechanisms that lead to surface damage, which, ultimately, leads to failure of the components. There is an increasing demand for reducing failures and the related costs due to wear and surface shortcomings of heavily loaded engineering components. Thus, application of surface technologies gives a great potential for saving resources and providing improved technology.

The presented research work involves characterization of a duplex treated i.e. plasma nitrided (at two different temperatures 520 °C, 550 °C) and PVD coated – X42Cr13/W plastic mould tool steel with special emphasis on the ball-on-disc wear behaviour of tested specimens. The objective is to study and evaluate the effect of different nitriding treatments prior to coating on the wear behaviour of specimens having different surface preparations. Also, it has been established that duplex treatment (plasma nitriding + physical vapour deposition [PVD] coating) gives better and improved properties as compared to individual treatments.