Tribological analysis of electrostatically developed multi (YSZ, TiN, SiC) nanocomposite coated cutting tool material

Abstract

The rapid wear of materials and inferior surface quality due to friction is a critical issue to address the high strength materials. A promising route to overcome the drawbacks by virtue of nanocomposite coating materials and adopt new coating techniques that can enhance the performance than the existing coating technology. An approach providing high performance with better coating property needs to be developed. This approach has the potential to produce high performance nanocomposite coating deposited by a technique designed, termed as electrostatic spray coating (ESC). Further, mechanical and tribological characteristics of nanocomposite (YSZ, TiN, SiC) coating produced by ESC technique were studied. The microstructure, EDAX, mapping and wear mechanism morphology were investigated by means of FE-SEM (field emission scanning electron microscopy). Micro hardness of coating at room and elevated temperatures were measured as part of mechanical tests to figure out the interrelation between properties of nanocomposite coating and mechanism of wear behavior. The dry sliding wear test and scratch resistant tests were performed under ambient temperature to evaluate the tribological properties. To evaluate the scratch resistance of nanocomposite coating scratch tester was utilizing, the critical load for failure of coating on tungsten carbide was determined. With the objective to analyze the wear behavior of nanocomposite coating and compare the results with uncoated surface, wear test was performed utilizing pin on disc configuration. In an effort to perform the wear test, the pin specimen being uncoated and nanocomposite coated tungsten carbide along with the counterpart disc specimen material as titanium alloy (Ti–6Al–4V). The response of wear test was analyzed with reference to wear mechanisms, friction coefficient and temperature of uncoated and nanocomposite coating. This approach was effective in enhancing the wear resistance properties of nanocomposite coating. Interestingly, these tests revealed that the nanocomposite coating deposited by electrostatic spray coating technique exhibited remarkable characteristics beneficial to diverse industrial applications.