Study on the thermal erosion, wear and corrosion behaviors of TiAlN/oxynitriding duplex-treated AISI H13 alloy steel

In this study, the AISI H13 alloy steel specimens were subjected to various surface treatments including oxynitriding, TiAlN coating and duplex TiAlN/oxynitriding treatments. The experimental results indicated that a 0.04–0.05 mm oxynitriding layer and 3–4 μm TiAlN thin film could be successfully obtained after the duplex TiAlN/oxynitriding treatment. Due to the duplex surface treatment having the highest surface hardness (Hv0.01 = 3463 ± 1.5), the wear behavior results showed both the lowest weight loss (0.97 g) and wear volume (0.047 mm3). Moreover, the higher hardness and high thermally stable properties of the TiAlN/oxynitriding duplex layer have the most effective erosion resistance in liquid A390 aluminum alloy compared to the other surface treatments. In addition, the corrosion test results also showed the duplex layer to have the lowest corrosion currents of 4.4169 × 10− 6 and 9.644 × 10− 5 A, and highest polarization resistance of 4233.2 and 407.65 Ω cm2 in 3.5 wt.% NaCl and 0.15 M HCl solutions, respectively, signifying that the duplex treatment resulted in the best corrosion resistance.