Abstract
High-current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) irradiation commonly induces crater-like cavities on irradiated surfaces, making them tribologically resemble textured ones. However, the effect of crater-like cavities on the lubricated tribological properties of HCPEB-treated surfaces has not been reported in the literature. This work was aimed at exploring the potential texturing effect of the crater-like cavities. Surfaces with continuous and uniform crater-like cavities were prepared through HCPEB irradiating a 400-nm thick Ta coating that was pre-deposited on polished M50 steel. Their boundary tribological behaviors were studied while sliding in chemically inert, low-viscosity hydrocarbon fuel JP-10 against a Si3N4 ball under 2.0–4.0 GPa. At 2.0 GPa, the coefficient of friction (COF) and wear rate of the polished M50 steel were above 0.16 on average, with large fluctuation, and 1.49 × 10−5 mm3/N·m (a rectangle-like profile of 167.9 μm × 8.1 μm), respectively. In comparison, the HCPEB-treated Ta coating had a stable, marginally fluctuant COF of 0.11 and a near-zero wear rate. Under other higher loads, the HCPEB-treated Ta coating still exhibited a stable COF of 0.11 on average with small fluctuation, and its wear track width was only half that of the M50 steel. The analysis of the wear topographies indicates that the substantial reduction in both the COF and wear rate was mainly due to the texturing effect originating from the crater-like cavities.
Highlights
High-current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) irradiation has been developed as an ever-increasingly attractive technique for the surface modification and alloying of metallic materials [1,2,3,4]
A significant reduction in both friction coefficient and wear rate was achieved by the HCPEB-treated Ta coating in a series of high-load conditions (2.0–4.0 GPa) compared to bare M50 steel, which was primarily due to the texturing effect originating from the crater-like cavities
Throughout the friction test at 2.0 GPa. The former virtually remained constant at around 0.11, while the later gradually increased from an average of 0.12 to above 0.16 as the friction test proceeded
Summary
High-current pulsed electron beam (HCPEB) irradiation has been developed as an ever-increasingly attractive technique for the surface modification and alloying of metallic materials [1,2,3,4]. Low-energy (up to 40 keV), high-current (up to 40 J/cm2 ) electron beams rush into the top surface layer within a pulse duration on a microsecond scale (~2–3 μs), causing superfast heating, melting, evaporation, and solidification (~107–9 K/s), together with thermal stress and shock waves. This superfast heating–cooling thermal cycle leads to significant change in the surface microstructure with modified physical and chemical properties, e.g., hardness [5,6,7,8], corrosion resistance [6,8,9,10,11] and oxidation resistance [12,13,14]. Xu et al [15]
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