MECHANICAL STABILITY AND ADHESION OF CERAMIC COATINGS DEPOSITED ON STEELS

This paper presents the results of two sorts of deformation experiment performed on coating/substrate systems. The coating/substrate systems were constituted by coatings of titanium nitride and chromium carbide, deposited in both cases on steel substrates. The deformation experiments were cyclic bending tests on macroscopic samples with chromium carbide coating, and straining experiments performed in a scanning electron microscope on samples with titanium nitride coatings. By the analysis of our experimental results we develop an attempt to correlate the mechanical stability of the systems with the interfacial adhesion, by taking into account the internal residual stresses as an adhesion parameter. For the samples with chromium carbide coatings, the evolution of internal stresses is detected from X-ray diffractometry and discussed in terms of the observed induced damaging mechanisms, in the cyclic tests. For the samples with titanium nitride coatings, we discussed the adhesion from the microstructural observations and from the critical parameters determined during the in-situ straining experiments.