Impact and Sliding Wear Properties of Single Layer, Multilayer and Nanocomposite Physical Vapour Deposited (PVD) Coatings on the Plasma Nitrided Low-Alloy 42CrMo4 Steel

The current paper provides a comparison of impact wear and sliding wear properties of the hard PVD single layer TiN and Ti(C,N), multilayer (Ti,Al)N and nanocomposite FiVIc (R) coatings, deposited onto plasma nitrided low-alloy 42CrMo4 steel. All of the coatings studied demonstrated a relatively high impact wear resistance at the low (10(4)) and medium (10(5)) numbers of impact, however, all the studied coatings vanished at the high number of impacts (10(6)). The most extensive wear amongst the coatings during the sliding wear test was observed for the (Ti,Al)N coating, with FiVIc (R) showing the least extensive wear. The most extensive wear of the counterbody (hardened steel ball) was registered for the (Ti,Al)N coating, with the lowest wear for the FiVIc (R) and Ti(C,N) coatings. The wear mechanism of coatings was mild abrasion, accompanied by oxidation, and the wear mechanism of the counterbody was plastic deformation.