WEAR-RESISTANCE OF ION-IMPLANTED METALLIC MATERIALS

The present work is devoted to the study of the effect of ion implantation on the wear resistance of materials. Steel 3 and copper cylinder specimens were irradiated with 40 keV carbon, zirconium, titanium, niobium, lead, molybdenum and chromium continuous ion beams and a 200 keV pulsed carbon ion beam with fluences of 10(17) ions cm-2 and 10(13) ions cm-2 respectively. The loss of mass during friction of the butt surface against the rotating disk was taken as the measure of wear. For materials irradiated with continuous ion beams the depth of the layer with increased wear resistance was about 80 100-mu-m, which is two orders of magnitude greater than the depth of penetration of the implanted ions. In the case of ion implantation with a pulsed ion beam for a short period of time, a great amount of heat was generated. The speed of its dissipation into the bulk of a specimen depends on the thermal conductivity of the material, and hardening of the wear-surface layer starts with cooling at some speed.