Tribological and Mechanical Properties of the Nanostructured Superlattice Coatings with Respect to Surface Texture

Ceramic Nanostructured Superlattice Coatings (NSC) have broad applicability to improve the parts’ and assemblies’ tribological and mechanical properties for the needs of the automotive and aerospace industries. Improving the material properties using nanocoatings for such a widely used material as, for example, bearing steel 100Cr6 makes it possible to improve the service life of machine parts. In this paper, the correlation dependence between tribological and mechanical properties of the NSC and its surface texture are considered to determine how much surface texture will affect the tribological performance of the coated workpieces, as well as the measuring and evaluation procedure of the nanocoatings, are presented. Three different NSC described by a general empirical formula {TiMe1Me2-CN/TiAlSi-N}n and based on the modified carbonitride/nitride non-stoichiometric chemical composition were created, and their tribological and mechanical properties measured and analyzed in the context with surface texture. NSC deposited by the advanced PVD (Physical vapor deposition) technique demonstrated significantly higher wear resistance (up to 28 times), reasonably lower friction coefficient (CoF) (up to 4 times), and significantly higher hardness of the coated workpieces (up to 7 times) versus substrate material. A strong correlation between the steady-state dry sliding friction, CoF, and the amplitude and functional surface texture parameters of tribo-track were observed. The first results of the initiated research regarding the correlation analysis of the tribological and mechanical properties, on the one hand, and surface texture, on the other hand, of the NSC are reported here.