Enhanced wear and fatigue properties of Ti-6Al-4V alloy modified by plasma carburizing/CrN coating.

In this study, a newly developed duplex coating method incorporating plasma carburization and CrN coating was applied to Ti-6Al-4V and its effects on the wear resistance and fatigue life were investigated. The carburized layer with approximately150 microm in depth and CrN coating film with 7.5 microm in thickness were formed after duplex coating. Hard carbide particles such as TiC And V(4)C(3) were formed in the carburized layer. XRD diffraction pattern analysis revealed that CrN film had predominant [111] and [200] textures. The hardness (Hv) was significantly improved up to about 1,960 after duplex coating while the hardness value of original Ti-6Al-4V was 402. The threshold load for the modification and/or failure of CrN coating was measured to be 32 N using the acoustic emission technique. The wear resistance and fatigue life of duplex-coated Ti-6Al-4V improved significantly compared to those of un-treated specimen. The enhanced wear resistance can be attributed to the excellent adhesion and improved hardness of CrN coating film for the duplex-coated Ti-6Al-4V. The initiation of fatigue cracks is likely to be retarded by the presence of hard and strong layers on the surface, resulting in the enhanced fatigue life.