Microstructure, mechanical properties and wear behaviors of TiN/Ti composite coating on laser surface textured Ti6Al4V alloy fabricated by MHz picosecond laser surface alloying

Abstract

Ceramic-reinforced metal matrix composites (MMCs) coating fabricated by laser surface melting effectively improves the surface mechanical and wear properties of titanium alloys. However, power of several hundred watts is generally used in traditional laser processing, which introduces excessive heat input and leads to thermal deformation and thermal effects, resulting in cracks and reducing mechanical properties and service life of coatings. In order to improve the microhardness and anti-wear properties of Ti6Al4V alloy and extend the service life, a picosecond laser (ps-laser) with a power of 23 W and repetition rate of 19 MHz was utilized to fabricate the uniform and crack-free MMCs coating (TiN/Ti) by melting TiN powders on the textured Ti6Al4V surface. Three different textures with different texture densities and depths were used to evaluate their effects on coatings. Results showed that the reinforced TiN phase was in the form of fine dendrites with an average secondary dendrite arm spacing of 0.84 µm. The microhardness and the anti-wear properties were both inversely proportional to the texture densities because of controlling the volume fraction of TiN in the coating. The microhardness of the sample with greatest microhardness increase was significantly improved from 355 HV0.5 (base material) to 1000 HV0.5 due to the addition of the TiN phase. The sample with a texture density of 5% showed the best anti-wear properties (about 22 times that of the substrate) due to the effective suppression of three-body abrasive wear.