Tribological behavior of laser-textured NiCrBSi coatings

This work presents and discusses the tribological behavior of NiCrBSi coatings obtained by diode-laser cladding and with good high-temperature antiwear behavior, textured by aNd-YAG laser to achieve good friction behavior. Different densities and distances between dimples were tested by obtaining their coefficients of friction at different sliding speeds under a load of 100 N with a CETR UMT-3 tribometer and comparing results with a non-textured NiCrBSi coating. The study led to the following conclusions: surface texturing, carried out according to the contact area, reduces the coefficient of friction throughout the speed range tested; to obtain tribological improvement, it is necessary to focus on the relationships between density, dimple diameter and contact area; smaller diameters allow higher numbers of dimples per unit of area, improving the tribological behavior; incorrect dimple density values lead to disruptive behavior, due to both high and low dimple ratios. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.