Sliding Wear Behavior of Spark-Plasma-Sintered Fe-Based Amorphous Alloy Coatings on Cu-Ni Alloy

This paper reports on the processing of Fe48Cr15Mo14Y2C15B6 amorphous alloy coatings on Cu-10%Ni (wt.%) alloy using spark plasma sintering. The amorphous alloy coatings were sintered at temperatures ranging from 575 to 675 A degrees C at a pressure of 50 MPa. The development of microstructure, phases, and wear properties with sintering temperature of the coatings is investigated. The sintered coatings were found to be near fully dense with hardness close to that of the sintered bulk amorphous alloy. X-ray analysis indicated increasing degree of devitrification of the amorphous coatings with increasing sintering temperature. The wear behavior of the coatings is significantly influenced by the sintering temperature with volume wear rate first decreasing in the temperature range of 575-650 A degrees C and then increasing above 650 A degrees C. The variation in wear behavior is explained based on relative stability of the protective surface layer and embrittlement of the surface with the sintering temperature.