FATIGUE PROPERTIES AND FRACTURE MECHANISM OF STEEL COATED WITH DIAMOND-LIKE CARBON FILMS

Abstract

Diamond-like carbon (DLC) films have attracted much attention in many industrial fields because of their excellent tribological properties, high hardness, chemical inertness and biocompatibility. In order to examine the fatigue properties and to clear the fracture mechanism of DLC coated materials, AISI4140 steel coated with DLC films by using unbalanced magnetron sputtering method was prepared and two types of fatigue test were carried out by using a tension and compression testing machine with stress ratio -1 and a bending testing machine with stress ratio -1 with a focused on the fatigue crack behavior in detail. The fracture origin changed from the slip deformation to micro defects at surface whose size didn't affect the fatigue crack initiation behavior in the case of Virgin series because the hard coating like DLC films make the defect sensitivity of coated material higher. However, DLC series indicated higher fatigue strengths in finite life region and fatigue limit compared with Virgin series. From the continuously observation by using a plastic replicas technique, it is clear that there are no noticeable differences on fatigue crack propagation rate between the Virgin and DLC series, however the fatigue crack initiation of DLC series was delayed significantly by existence of DLC films compared with Virgin series.