A review on wear-resistant coating with high hardness and high toughness on the surface of titanium alloy

Abstract

Aiming at the problem of the “inverse relationship” between the hardness (wear resistance) and toughness of the traditional single homogeneous structure coating on the surface of titanium alloy, the design and development of a high hardness, high toughness and wear-resistant coating with high reliability and long life is great significance for expanding the application of titanium alloy. Inspired by the microstructure of high-performance organisms in nature, the design ideas of multi-phase, multi-level and multi-scale hybrid reinforcement are used to give full play to the synergy, coupling and multi-functional response mechanism between different phases in the coating to obtain the wear-resistant coating with high hardness and high toughness. This article mainly reviews the research progress of several typical wear-resistant coatings with high hardness and high toughness on the surface of titanium alloy from the aspects of preparation process, microstructure, mechanical properties, and strengthening-toughening mechanisms, such as gradient structure coating, multi-scale structure coating and layered structure coating. On this basis, it is pointed out that in the future, the wear-resistant coating with high hardness and high toughness on the surface of titanium alloy should develop in the direction of developing intelligent manufacturing technology, optimal design and precise tailoring of microstructural architectures, and constructing the numerical simulation technology of composition-structure-performance. Furthermore, the authors propose the technology route for the controllable preparation of wear-resistant coating with high hardness and high toughness on the surface of titanium alloy, namely, through the coordination of theoretical calculations, numerical simulations, and intelligent manufacturing technologies to achieve the controllable preparation of the optimal structural coatings on the surface of titanium alloy, establish the functional relationship between composition-structure-performance, and accurately reveal the mechanism of strengthening and toughening, which provides a new idea for alleviating and balancing the bottleneck of the “inverse relationship” between hardness (wear resistance) and toughness, and achieving the preparation of titanium-based surface composite with excellent comprehensive properties.