Investigating the structure, adhesion and tribological properties of Al and Zr-doped TiN coatings with various substrate bias voltage and working pressure

In this study, TiAlZrN films were coated on the hardened 1.2344 (X 40 CrMoV 5 1) steels using DC power supplied closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering (CFUBMS) technique. Structural investigations of coatings were carried out using scanning electron microscope and X-ray diffraction. The thickness of coatings was measured from the cross-sectional scanning electron microscope images, and the grain size value and residual stress were calculated by using X-ray diffraction data in the Scherrer formula. Nano indentation method was used to investigate the surface hardness for reducing the substrate effect due to very thin coating thickness (∼2–3 µm). Scratch test was performed for determining the adhesion strength of the coatings. As a tribo-test, a ball-on-disk system was used. From the results, it was understood why TiAlZrN coatings were attractive. The highest hardness was observed as 50.67 GPa, and the highest scratch resistance was reached to 56 N. Also, it was determined that the coating having the highest tribological properties (5.46 × 10 −5 mm 3 /Nm) increased the wear resistance of the substrate six times (3.06 × 10 −4 mm 3 /Nm).