The effect of substrate pretreatment on PVD TiN hard coating performance

This work comprises a study of the deposition and characterization of TiN coatings of different thicknesses on AISI M2 substrates heat-treated to different hardnesses. The effect of both substrate hardness and coating thickness on coating tribological performance was evaluated. The characterization tests included surface roughness measurement, coating thickness, micro-hardness, scratch adhesion, pin on disc, impact and corrosion tests. New findings on the impact wear behavior of TiN tempered M2 substrates were highlighted. For example, using a thin coating and tempering the substrate at 650 degrees C to slightly reduce the substrate hardness gave improved impact wear resistance. A maximum surface composite hardness value was obtained at 'full' substrate hardening (i.e. non-tempered) and the maximum TiN coating thickness as expected. The maximum critical load (79.2 N), in scratch adhesion tests was obtained from the fully hardened substrate with minimum TiN coating thickness. The results from corrosion tests show that tempering has an adverse effect on corrosion resistance.