The effect of coating and nitriding on the wear behaviour of tool steels

The influence of pretreatment on the wear behaviour of AISI D3 and Vanadis 4 tool steels coated with TiC, TiN and Al2O3 were experimentally investigated in air at room temperature and without lubrication. The two substrate materials were nitrided using gas nitriding. The thin films were deposited using magnetron-sputtering technique. A comparison between the wear resistance of nitrided, coated, nitrided and coated samples were made. Vickers microhardness measurements were carried out. The Al2O3 and TiN coatings out-performed TiC coatings when they were used as duplex coating in this study. The out-performance of the prenitrided Al2O3 and TiN coatings can be attributed to the presence of a nitrided subsurface.