An investigation on sliding wear behavior of PVD coatings

Ti–6Al–4V alloy rubbing against aluminum–bronze 630 was evaluated in this work. High velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) WC–10%Co–4%Cr thermal sprayed and TiN, CrN and DLC physical vapor deposition (PVD) coatings were applied to increase titanium substrate wear resistance. Pin-on-disk tests were performed with a normal force of 5 N and at a speed of 0.5 m/s, with a quantitative comparison between the five conditions studied. Results showed higher wear resistance for Ti–6Al–4V alloy DLC coated and aluminum–bronze 630 tribological pair and that the presence of graphite carbon structure acting as solid lubricant was the main wear preventing mechanism.