Fretting wear of multilayered PVD TiAlCN/TiAlN/TiAl on AISI 4140 steel

Physical vapor deposition (PVD) coatings are recommended for metallic components to mitigate the damage induced by fretting wear. Several experimental investigations have led to the development of a TiAlCN/TiAlCN/TiAl coating in preference to the traditional TiN coating. The present work enabled quantification of the resistance to fretting wear of a TiAlCN/TiAlCN/TiAl multilayer coating deposited by reactive DC magnetron sputtering of Ti–Al alloys on AISI 4140 steel. Experimental simulations of the fretting wear induced by 20,000 cycles at a frequency of 5 Hz made it possible to establish a fretting map and delimit the partial-slip and gross-slip regions. The influence of normal force and displacement amplitude on the coefficients of instantaneous and stabilized friction is deferred for coated and uncoated steels. The PVD coating reduces the friction. The relation between worn volume and dissipated cumulated energy was established for coated and uncoated steels, and the energetic wear coefficients of fretting wear were deduced. The multilayer TiAlCN/TiAlCN/TiAl coating reduces the energetic wear coefficient, which is synonymous with improving the resistance to fretting wear.