Improvement of erosion resistance of titanium with different surface treatments

To improve the erosion resistance of titanium, several surface treatment methods were applied: (1) duplex treatment with carbon nitride film deposited on a plasma-nitrided layer, (2) diamond coating, and (3) laser alloying, Duplex treatment could improve the erosion resistance of titanium under a low impact velocity of erosion particles. However, under a high velocity of erosion particles, because of the shallow depth of the plasma-nitrided layer and low load-bearing capacity of carbon nitride layer on the plasma-nitrided specimen, the improvement of erosion resistance was not significant. Diamond coatings with a thickness of 15 mum made no significant improvement on the erosion resistance of the titanium substrate. The large-area spallation of diamond coating during erasion was observed, probably due to the high residual stresses, poor load-bearing capacity, and brittle nature of diamond coatings. Compared with untreated Ti substrate, the erosion resistance of the laser-alloyed (nitrided) specimen was improved significantly. The erosion mechanisms for laser-nitrided titanium were characterized by chipping, brittle fracture, and formation of large flakes in the laser-nitrided layers.