The influence of growth defects in sputter-deposited TiAlN hard coatings on their tribological behavior

The wear of growth defects produced during magnetron sputtering and the subsequent tribological processes were systematically studied using ball-on-disk tests. The aim was to examine in detail the processes that occur between the surfaces coated with a hard coating and a typical tribological counter body. For this purpose a tool-steel substrate coated with TiAlN was subjected to a set of tribological tests in order to investigate the initial wear processes between different sliding pairs. As a counter body, either a hard alumina (Al2O3) or a softer 100Cr6 ball was used. The growth defects form the first contact between the adjacent surfaces; therefore, the study was limited to the running-in period of the cyclic sliding. Using SEM and FIB we followed the same group of defects after each cycle of tribological test to reveal the underlying wear processes. (C) 2016 Published by Elsevier B.V.