Tribological evaluation of surface modified H13 tool steel in warm forming of Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy sheet

The H13 hot-working tool steel is widely used as die material in the warm forming of Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy sheet. However, under the heating condition, severe friction and lubricating conditions between the H13 tools and Ti–6Al–4V titanium alloy sheet would cause difficulty in guaranteeing forming quality. Surface modification may be used to control the level of friction force, reduce the friction wear and extend the service life of dies. In this paper, four surface modification methods (chromium plating, TiAlN coating, surface polishing and nitriding treatment) were applied to the H13 surfaces. Taking the coefficient of friction (CoF) and the wear degree as evaluation indicators, the high-temperature tribological behavior of the surface modified H13 steel was experimentally investigated under different tribological conditions. The results of this study indicate that the tribological properties of the TiAlN coating under dry friction condition are better than the others for a wide range of temperature (from room temperature to 500 °C), while there is little difference of tribological properties between different surface modifications under graphite lubricated condition, and the variation law of CoF with temperature under graphite lubricated is opposite to that under the dry friction.