Title: Enhanced surface properties of M2 steel by plasma nitriding pre-treatment and magnetron sputtered TiN coating

Authors: M.S. Libório; E.O. Almeida; S.M. Alves; T.H.C. Costa; M.C. Feitor; R.M. Nascimento; R.R.M. Sousa; M. Naeem; Mohsan Jelani

Addresses: Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Programa de Pós-Graduação em Engenharia Mecânica, UFRN, Natal, Brazil ' Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica, UFPI, Teresina, Brazil ' Department of Physics, Women University of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Bagh, Pakistan ' Department of Physics, University of Kotli Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Pakistan

Abstract: AISI M2 high-speed steels are widely used in cutting/forming tools due to their easy machinability and balanced toughness. Unfortunately, they exhibit severe cutting edge wear, which reduces their useful lifetime. The lifetime of such steels can be improved by titanium nitride hard coating. However, in sliding wear applications having a metal-to-metal contact, such coatings exhibit low adhesion to the substrate due to substantial hardness differences among coating and substrate. Here, plasma nitriding is performed before the deposition of magnetron sputtered-TiN coating using various nitriding parameters to find whether the surface properties of the duplex treated sample can be altered by changing these parameters or not. It is found that the surface hardness and hardening depth can be improved by using the duplex treatment as compared to only TiN coating. A significant decrease in wear rate is attained using the duplex treatment and substantial improvement by altering the plasma nitriding parameters.

Keywords: M2 steel; TiN coating; plasma nitriding; magnetron sputtering; wear resistance.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSURFSE.2020.112283

International Journal of Surface Science and Engineering, 2020 Vol.14 No.4, pp.288 - 306

Received: 01 May 2020
Accepted: 05 Jun 2020
Published online: 06 Jan 2021 *

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