Friction and Wear Behavior of Micro-Arc Oxidation Ceramic Coating on Pure Magnesium Surfaces

Abstract

A relatively new process called microarc oxidation (MAO), also called plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO), has emerged as a unique technique to produce hard, thick ceramic oxide coatings on different Mg or Al alloys. The magnesium offers various possibilities of application in industry, but its poor property in corrosion resistance, wear resistance, hardness and so on, limited its application. Through microarc oxidation, ceramic coating is directly formed on the surface of pure magnesium, by which its surface property is greatly improved. In this paper, a dense ceramic oxide ceramic coating was prepared on the magnesium by microarc oxidation in a Na2SiO3-Na2WO4-KOH-Na2EDTA electrolytic solution. The surface morphology of the coating was observed by the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Using the X-ray diffraction (XRD), the phase structure of the coating was analyzed. The friction and wear behavior of the micro-arc oxidation ceramic coating under dry sliding against GCr15 steel was evaluated on a ball-on-disc test rig. The results showed that the magnesium was characterized by adhesion wear and scuffing under dry sliding against the steel, while the surface micro-arc oxidation ceramic coating experienced much abated adhesion wear and scuffing under the same testing condition. The micro-arc oxidation ceramic coating showed good friction-reducing and fair antiwear ability in dry sliding against the steel.