Wear behaviour of AlCN/AlC and FeCrN coatings developed on alloy steel

The fretting wear and adhesive wear resistance of Al and Fe-based thin solid films deposited onto MDN121 steel are studied. Plasma-assisted cathodic arc evaporation technique (P-CAE) is used to develop AlCN/AlC and FeCrN monolayer coatings. The coatings and wear tracks are characterised by FESEM-EDS, nanoindentation, Raman spectroscopy, optical profiler, and confocal microscope. The results reveal that during fretting and adhesive wear, tracks are investigated using confocal microscopy and electron microscopy. When fretting wear occurs, the Coefficient of Friction (COF) dramatically decreases for AlCN/AlC thin solid films by 48.65% and for FeCrN thin solid films by 62.16% when compared to the substrate. FeCrN coating exhibits lower volumetric wear loss than AlCN/AlC coating. The wear surface morphology of both monolayer coverings against galling failure in the substrate exposes the abrasive form of the fretting wear process. Thin solid films of AlCN/AlC and FeCrN experience a COF reduction during adhesive wear of 40.89% and 56.22%, respectively, in comparison to the substrate. The FeCrN monolayer coating exhibits low friction and wear rate compared to AlCN/AlC monolayer coating.