Wear and friction behaviour of duplex-treated AISI 4140 steel

In this study samples of AISI 4140 steel were pretreated by plasma nitriding: and coated with two different physical vapour deposited coatings (TIN and TiAlN). A hardened AISI 4140 sample and a coated sample were also included in the investigation. To examine the influence of the nitrided zone on the performance of the coating-substrate composite, two different nitriding conditions - a conventional 25% N-2 and an N-2-poor gas mixture - were used. The specimens were investigated with respect to their microhardness, surface roughness, scratch adhesion and dry sliding wear resistance. Wear tests in which the duplex-treated pins were mated to hardened ball bearing steel discs were performed in a pin-on-disc machine under dry sliding conditions. Metallography, scanning electron microscopy and profilometry were used to analyse the worn surfaces in order to determine the dominant friction and wear characteristics of the samples investigated. The results show improved wear properties of the plasma-nitrided hard-coated specimens compared with uncoated and pre-hardened ones. Although previous investigations showed a negative effect of the compound layer, it was found that a precisely controlled plasma nitriding process can lead to a dense, uniform and highly adherent compound layer with a positive effect on the wear properties of pre-nitrided and hard-coated AISI 4140 steel. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.