Factors Influencing Hardness of a Coating Material for Coating a Machine Component

Abstract

This work investigated the influences of DC current, pressure and N2 to Ar gas flow rate on hardness of a TiN hard coating material for coating a fishing net-weaving machine component of a fishing net-weaving machine, namely upper hook. The target of this study was to maximize the hardness of TiN coated upper hook in order to maximize the corresponding wear resistance. Three process factors including DC current, operating pressure and N2 to Ar flow rate ratio were simultaneously investigated using the factorial design with replicates at the center point of the three factors method. Analysis of variance was used to investigate the effect of the three factors on the hardness of the TiN coated upper hook and the contour plots based on empirical model were plotted to obtain an appropriate operating condition of the statistically significant process factors with maximizing hardness value leading to the wear resistance of the upper hook. The results showed that the operating pressure and the N2 to Ar flow rate ratio and interaction among the three process factors significantly affected the average hardness at the level of significance of 0.05. Finally, an appropriate operating condition of the significant process factors was obtained at the higher levels of the operating pressure and the N2 to Ar flow rate ratio.