Wear-resistant coatings on aluminium produced by plasma anodising—A correlation of wear properties, microstructure, phase composition and distribution

In the recent decades, various process windows have been found for plasma anodising of aluminium surfaces to produce wear-resistant alumina coatings. The coatings offer a high hardness and provide an excellent bonding to the substrate material, thus preventing spallation under mechanical or tribological load. In the present study, coatings with a high abrasive wear resistance and a hardness of up to 12 GPa were produced in an electrolyte of 5 g/l sodium metasilicate and 5 g/l potassium hydroxide at a current density of 30 A/dm2. To understand the reasons for the high wear resistance, the morphology as well as the phase composition and distribution within the coating were examined globally and locally using X-ray diffraction with conventional and grazing incidence and electron backscatter diffraction. The analyses show that the coating globally is comprised of approximately one third of α-alumina, one third of γ-alumina and one third of amorphous alumina with locally varying phase content.