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Wear 250 (2001) 561–568

Abrasive wear behavior of high speed steel and hard


metal coated with TiAlN and TiCN
J.D. Bressan a,∗ , R. Hesse a , E.M. Silva Jr. b
a Departmento de Engenharia Mecânica, Centro de Ciências Tecnológicas — CCT/UDESC Campus Universitário, 89223-100 Joinville/SC, Brazil
b Fabrica de Componentes, B1. 14 EMBRACO, Rua Rui Barbosa 1020, Cx. P. 91 89.219-901 Joinville/SC, Brazil

Abstract
The wear behavior of M2 high speed HSS steel and WC hard metal coated with TiAlN and TiCN were investigated and compared, using
the pin on disk standard test with different loads. The coating PVD process has been done by two different suppliers, using an industrial
equipment unit with optimized conditions. The coated layers were measured and characterized. The load, sliding distance and velocity of
0.5 m/s were kept constant during the abrasion test in order to control these variables. The counterface disks used were electric steel sheets
from three different suppliers. The lost volume and temperature at the pin end have been measured during the wear test. Comparisons of
tribological performance for the coated HSS and hard metal were done, using a plot of lost volume versus sliding distance for substrates
and coatings. The pin worn surfaces were observed using a scanning electron microscope. A significant increase in the wear resistance
of M2 steel and WC hard metal when coated with TiAlN and TiCN was observed. Quality of these coatings depended upon the supplier.
Excessive porosity has diminished the TiAlN counting wear resistance from one supplier. However, in general the performance of TiAlN
is superior to TiCN. The pin wear rate depended on the disk microstructure. © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: High speed steel; Hard metal; TiAlN; TiCN; Wear

1. Introduction Wear of machinery parts and tooling has direct influence


on productivity, efficiency, reliability and quality of manu-
The classes of processes for surface modification or coat- factured equipment and products. Therefore, it has been an
ing aimed at improving performance by obtaining a good issue of great concern due to tool life, components repair,
combination of surface and bulk properties not attainable failure and undesirable production line stops. Besides, future
by other means, is known as surface engineering [1]. The tendency is to increase the speed of production and use of
two main objectives of surface engineering for tribological lighter materials. Consequently, velocity and stress levels of
applications in components and tooling are: increase wear machinery and tools will increase and so the wear problems
resistance and modify friction behavior. In some cases both will increase also.
aims are attained. Wear is a complex surface phenomenon that occurs mainly
Recently, the industrial and medical applications of wear due to sliding and impact of hard particles against the solid
resistant materials and coatings as well as their economic im- surfaces, and corrosion, even in the presence of lubricants. It
plications have received much attention from researchers and plays an important role in the life of tools and machine com-
institutes. It has been of great concern to advance the prop- ponents due to the loss of mass of the material, fatigue and
erties of existing materials and to develop new materials ca- failure problems arising from the increasing surface rough-
pable of giving better in-service performance of components ness and cracks.
to the designed functions. Many new wear resistant materi- Friction arises from the interaction of microscopic as-
als have been presented for quite different applications, but perities or roughness found in all solid surfaces [2]. The
increase in wear resistance has been attained with great effi- surface interactions are mechanical deformation and chem-
ciency by various coatings and surface treatment techniques. ical adhesion of asperities leading to high forces necessary
to promote sliding. The effective contact area between two
solids is usually a small part of the nominal area and the
∗ Corresponding author. contact pressure at the level of the roughness, in general,
E-mail addresses: dem2jdb@dcc.fej.udesc.br (J.D. Bressan), can be much greater than the elastic limit of the material
eraclito m silva jr@embraco.com.br (E.M. Silva Jr.). which leads to plastic deformation.

0043-1648/01/$ – see front matter © 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 0 4 3 - 1 6 4 8 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 6 3 8 - X
562 J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568

Wear mechanisms that cause material removal from the ture and properties can be modified, without damaging the
surface include: ploughing, wedge formation, micro-chip underlying bulk material or substrate. The available surface
formation, chemical adhesion, erosion, corrosion, fretting, treatment processes should be considered as an integral part
gouging, scuffing, galling and delamination [1–4]. How- of the design and material selection. Costs may be reduced
ever, the abrasive wear mechanisms involving plastic defor- by selecting a cheaper alloy for bulk properties and enhanc-
mation mechanisms [4–8] are: ploughing, wedge formation ing only the surface.
and micro-cutting. In the ploughing mode, a plastic wave is The surface engineering methods can be classified in two
pushed continuously in front of the hard particle and no ma- broad classes [1]: surface modification and surface coating.
terial is removed. In the wedge formation mechanism, there In the first case, the material surface microstructure can be
is the development of a wedge or built-up-edge in front of modified selectively without changing its composition as in
the sliding hard particle that eventually is sheared off and the quenching process or in the laser surface melting, fol-
another wedge is formed. On the other hand, in the cutting lowed by fast solidification process. Alternatively, compo-
mode, formation of a continuous chip in front of the sliding sition and microstructure can be modified simultaneously.
asperity or particle occurs. Both wedge formation and cut- This can be attained by increasing the thermal diffusion
ting promotes material removal. Numerical methods have of a chemical compound into the surface. The composition
also been used to simulate friction and wear [9]. and micro-structural changes which can be attained by these
Despite these recent developments in friction and wear methods are obviously limited, and for may purpose film
theories, which can predict reasonably well the main wear deposition or surface coating can be used. Some techniques
mechanism, and advanced manufacturing techniques, there are only applicable to metals and some exclusively to steels,
are still component wear losses due to the lack of design although others can be applied to polymers and ceramics.
optimization and the presence of contaminant particles from A comparative study of the wear behavior of PVD coat-
the environment. In abrasion there are the inevitable asperi- ings TiAlN and TiCN were carried out in the present work.
ties contacts and these hard particles contaminants. Thus, to The coating process has been done by two different sup-
reduce wear, it is necessary to increase the surface hardness pliers, using an industrial equipment unit under maximized
of components and tooling to values greater than, or close conditions. The wear performance was experimentally inves-
to, the hardness of these hard particles. tigated using the pin on disk method. The pins were coated
However, for some applications, wear resistant bulk ma- HSS steel and hard metal WC, and the disks were made
terial may not be appropriate due to cost, weight, other me- from electric steel sheets.
chanical properties or manufacturing difficulties. For such
situations, surface engineering methods can be employed ei-
ther to apply a hard coating on a substrate with good bulk 2. Materials and experimental procedure
properties, or to modify the surface properties by changing
the surface material phase or chemical composition. PVD coating of the pin surfaces processes was car-
Surface engineering processes for tribological applica- ried out in industrial equipment at a specialized company:
tions in components and tooling are therefore necessary in coating suppliers A and B. The nominal characteristics of
order to increase the material wear resistance or to mod- the deposited coatings are shown in Table 1. The hard-
ify, its friction behavior. The surface and bulk of a material ness of the coatings and the substrate materials have
component often need to satisfy different requirements. Bet- been experimentally measured and the values are seen
ter overall performance can be obtained if the surface struc- in Table 2.

Table 1
Nominal characteristics of the deposited TiAlN and TiCN coatings given by suppliers
Coating Microhardness (HV 0.05) Thickness of coating (␮m) Process temperature (◦ C) Friction coefficient against steel (␮)

TiCN 3000 1–4 ≤500 0.4


TiAlN 3500 1–3 ≤550 0.4
TiAlN × multilayer 3000 1–5 ≤550 0.4

Table 2
Experimental microhardness results for pin materials substrates and the deposited TiAlN and TiCN coatings from suppliers A and B
Material\coating HSS WC HSS\TiCN HSS\TiAlN WC\TiAlN

A B A B A B

Microhardness (HV 0.5) 775 1370 836 1015 940 – 1730 1675
J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568 563

for the hard metal. The pin sliding velocity during the test
was kept constant at about 0.5 m/s and the radius of circular
wear track was 16 mm. The counterface disks were tested
as received and were made of 0.5 mm electric steel sheets
received from three different suppliers: steel 1, steel 2 and
steel 3 with Vickers hardness 103, 156 and 144 kg/mm2 ,
respectively. These disks, 62 mm in diameter, were glued
to a steel disk base which was held by a chuck jaw and
was driven by a small electric motor. The materials were
tested by couples and were submitted to similar nominal
abrasive conditions. The lost volume of the pin and disk
materials were calculated by its measured mass variations.
Every 200 m of sliding distance the test was automatically
interrupted and the mass variation of pin and disk were

Fig. 1. Pin geometry.

The HSS steel grade M2 pin material was received from


Villares of Brazil with chemical composition: 0.85% C;
0.30% Mn; 0.25% Si; 2% V; 4% Cr; 6% W; 5% Mo. The
WC hard metal alloy pin material had 12% Co and grain
size varying from 1 to 2 ␮m. The electric steel disk mate-
rials had chemical composition: 0.10% C; 0.20% Al; 2.1%
Si; 0.15% Mn; 0.04% P; 0.008% S.
The wear test were run in a pin on disk laboratory equip-
ment with constant load and velocity, according to the
ASTM G-99-95 standard, and under normal atmosphere
conditions of about 20◦ C and 54–60% relative humidity.
The pin contact ends had a curvature radius of 10 mm and
were milled to give good surface finish (Fig. 1). The ap-
plied normal load were 19.5 and 29.5 N corresponding to a
maximum Hertzian contact pressure [5] of approximately
760 and 870 MPa for the HSS steel, and 970 and 1120 MPa

Fig. 2. Mean temperature at the pin end for HSS under normal loads of Fig. 3. Microstructure of the electric steel disk surfaces, showing grain
19.5 and 29.5 N. size, and inclusion, particles and Vickers hardness.
564 J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568

Fig. 4. Comparisons of rate of lost mass for pins under the normal load of 38.6 N, sliding against steel disks 1 and 2.

measured using an analytic balance accurate to 0.1 mg. The about 2 mm from the contact surface. Temperature rises as
lost volume of the pins was calculated by dividing the mea- the load increases, but are below 70◦ C for HSS and WC.
sured lost mass by the pin material density: 7.85 g/cm3 for The disk microstructures are different as can be seen in
HSS steel and 15.7 g/cm3 for WC hard metal. Temperature Fig. 3, although they are similar electric steels. The grain
of the pin contact end was measured during the tests, using size varies quite a lot and hard particles are possibly present
a thermocouple inserted at a hole in the pin tip end. The in the grain.
temperature point was 2 mm from the disk contact surface. In Fig. 4, a comparison of the lost mass rate for HSS,
The maximum temperature attained during the test has been HSS coated with TiCN (HSS\TiCN) and WC pins are plot-
registered and is commented next. ted as functions of the sliding distance. The benefit of the
TiCN coating is very clear. The rate of lost mass decreases
with the sliding distance possibly due to the decrease in the
3. Wear behavior and results nominal surface contact pressure as the contact channel in
the disk widened. The wear resistance comparison between
The experimental results obtained from the pin on disk HSS\TiCN and the hard metal WC, in terms of pin lost
tests were plotted to show temperature and the lost volume mass is misleading as the tool life is related more properly
versus the sliding distance for constant velocity and normal to the lost volume at its edges. The density of the hard metal
load. In all cases there were the formation of scratches on is double the density of the HSS. Thus, the lost volume for
the steel disk after the first 200 m sliding distance. the hard metal is less than the HSS for the same amount
In Fig. 2, the mean temperatures attained during the wear of lost mass. In fact, the hard metal lost volume is half the
test at the pin end is shown. The point of measurement is lost volume of the HSS. Therefore, the lost volume is more

Fig. 5. Pin’s lost volume vs. sliding distance for HSS coated with TiCN from suppliers A and B. Normal load of 29.5 N is indicated by II.
J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568 565

Fig. 6. (a) and (b) Pin’s lost volume vs. sliding distance. WC coated with TiAlN from suppliers B and WC without coating. Normal load of 19.5 N (I)
and 29.5 N (II).

Fig. 7. Pin’s lost volume vs. sliding distance. WC coated with TiAlN from suppliers B and WC coated with TiAlN × multilayer from supplier A. Normal
load of 19.5 N (I).
566 J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568

Fig. 8. Scanning electron microscope photographs of HSS pin tips coated with TiAlN and TiCN from supplier A, after sliding 2400 m over steel disks
1, 2 and 3. Normal load of 19.5 N.

Fig. 9. Scanning electron microscope photographs of WC pin tips coated with TiAlN multilayers on hard metal pin tips, after sliding 200 m over steel
disks 1, 2 and 3. Normal load of 29.5 N. Porosity and hard particles and present at the coating. Abrasive scratches are also observed. Coating supplier A.
J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568 567

Fig. 10. Scanning electron microscope photographs of HSS pin tips coated with TiCN after sliding 2000 m over steel disks 1, 2 and 3. Normal load of
19.5 N. Coating process from supplier B.

appropriate to measure the wear resistance of the pin The wear performance of the coated hard metal can be
materials and coatings, and is used in the following analyzed in Fig. 8. As expected, the TiAlN coating on the
graphs. hard metal has increased its wear resistance. The rate of lost
In Fig. 5, a comparison of the wear performance of the volume is substantially reduced for the hard metal coated
HSS coated with TiCN from suppliers A and B is made. In when compared with WC hard metal without coating. Al-
general, the performance of the coating from company B is though the layer is very small, about 4 ␮m, the benefit to
better than the coating delivered by company A, although increase tool life is clear.
the nominal specifications are the same. This is possibly The influence of the normal load, and consequently the
due to variations of coating thickness, homogeneity, poros- nominal contact pressure, can also be evaluated in Fig. 8.
ity, hardness, grain size and adherence to substrate. Fig. 6 The rate of lost volume increases with the normal load.
shows SEM photographs of worn HSS pin tips coated with However, again the rate decrease with the sliding distance
TiCN and TiAlN from supplier A. The density of pores in possibly due to the decrease in the nominal contact pressure
the TiCN coating is superior to the TiAlN. Porisity in the at the pin surface.
TiCN coating from supplier B is greater than supplier A The quality of the TiAlN coating in relation to the supplier
as can be seen in Fig. 7. In addition, the disk material has can be estimated in Fig. 9. The coating quality from supplier
also a clear influence on the pin wear resistance as seen in B is clearly superior to that from supplier A, even although
Fig. 5. The hardest material, steel disk 2, provides the most the TiAlN multilayer process was used by supplier A. In fact,
severe pin wear as expected when compared to the softer the coating quality was diminished due to the occurrence of
steel disk 1. porosity as can be seen in Fig. 10.
568 J.D. Bressan et al. / Wear 250 (2001) 561–568

4. Concluding remarks hardness. Similar chemical compositions of electric steel


disks led to different pin wear rates. The most severe pin
Summarizing, from the analysis of the experimental re- wear rate was from sliding against the hardest steel disk that
sults in the present investigations the following conclusions had particles inside its grain microstructure.
can be drawn about the wear performance of the tested PVD
coatings and tool materials.
Pin on disk tests, micro-hardness test and SEM observa- Acknowledgements
tions provided important insights into the wear behavior of
M2 high speed steel, WC hard metal and coatings. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the
A significant increase in the wear resistance of M2 high financial support received from EMBRACO of Joinville,
speed steel and WC hard metal when coated with TiAlN Brazil, CNPq and UDESC-SC, Brazil.
and TiCN was observed in comparison to the same mate-
rial without coating, under a surface hertz contact pressure References
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[3] J.A. Greenwood, J.B.P. Williamson, The contact of nominally flat
the load 19.5 N and 60◦ C with the load 29.5 N, for sliding surfaces, Proc. R. Soc. London, Ser. A 295 (1966) 300.
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[6] D.A. Hills, D. Nowell, A. Sackfield, Mechanics of Elastic Contacts,
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the wear resistance as was observed with TiCN using the [7] J.M. Challen, P.L.B. Oxley, An explanation of the different regimes
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[8] J.D. Bressan, J.A. Williams, in: Proceedings of 13◦ CBECIMAT on
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Tribologia: Modelamento Matemático e Mapas de Atrito e Desgaste
TiAlN is superior to TiCN. Abrasivo de Metais, Curitiba, Brazil, 1998.
The wear rate of the pin, coated or not, depended on [9] A.A. Torrance, I. Galligan, G. Liraut, A model of friction of a smooth
the disk material microstructure: grain size, inclusions and hard surface sliding over a softer one, Wear 212 (1997) 213–220.

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