Investigation on effectiveness calculation and interaction of friction factor of CrN-coated stainless steel: Design of experiment and surface analysis

Abstract

Hydrogen valves for electric vehicles operate in a high-pressure friction environment and suffer significant wear damage; thus, application of surface treatment technology is necessary. Systematic research is needed to evaluate the effectiveness of friction factors to reduce wear damage in harsh environments of surface-treated specimens. In this investigation, CrN coating using the arc ion plating (AIP) method was applied to stainless steel, and the effectiveness of the factors (load, distance, and rotation speed) of wear damage was tested using the design of experiments method. A validity test was calculated using analysis of variance, and the calculated results were comprehensively compared with the microscopic analysis results. The analysis of variance indicated that the highest factor and lowest factor were the F-value of the load (127.49) and the rotation speed (0.66), respectively. The maximum damage depth and width increased as all friction factor conditions increased. As a result, the calculation of the effective factor of wear damage was similar between the analysis of variance and the microscopic analysis. The CrN coating layer had excellent wear resistance, and the load factor was the most effective.