MICROSTRUCTURE, MECHANICAL AND TRIBOLOGICAL BEHAVIOR OF THE TiAlVN COATINGS

Abstract

In this present work, the TiAlVN coatings were deposited by magnetron sputtering using a single alloy target of Ti60Al30V10. The effect of the argon (Ar) to nitrogen (N2) gas flow ratio on the structure, morphological characteristics and mechanical properties of the TiAlVN coating were investigated. The results of X-ray diffraction show the coatings have only face-centred cubic (fcc) structures at different gas ratio of Ar:N2. FE-SEM observation analysis each of the TiAlVN coatings indicated that the change of the gas ratio affects the surface morphology. The nano-indentation results demonstrated that coatings deposited with the gas ratio of Ar:N2 being 9:1 exhibited the highest hardness and elastic modulus. Moreover, with the various gas ratio of Ar:N2, ball-on-disc against SUJ2 ball in air at room temperature indicated friction coefficient from 0.43 to 0.58 in dry condition and 0.073 to 0.12 in oil condition, respectively, which is related to the surface roughness and grain sizes of the coatings.