Arc ion plating (AIP) is one of the most attractive physical vapour deposition (PVD) method for the industrial manufacture of TiN coatings, owing to a high degree of ionization in the target material and convenient control of the process parameters. The important characteristic of hard coating is the adhesion strength between the coating layer and the substrate. The coating will be subjected to various loads, such as mechanical, thermal load, etc., in practical applications. Therefore, for more than a decade, Ti-based hard coatings have been applied to tools, dies, and mechanical parts because of the enhance lifetime and performance. It is focus on the attractive properties such as high hardness, good wear, and chemical stability. In the present study, TiN monolayer film was prepared at various N2 partial pressures and current by the AIP technique in SACM645 material. The correlation between microstructure and properties of the TiN coating was comparatively investigated by XRD, FE-SEM and AFM. These study carried steadily out improve the adhesion properties and wear resistance of Ti-based coating using pre-treatment of the substrate, insertion of an interlayer, application of multi-layers and adjustment of the process parameters. The main phase FCC TiN displayed (200) orientation in the film with the highest N2partial pressure. The (111) orientation was observed with decreasing N2partial pressure. The (200) and (111) textures in the film which was treated 80A arc current were found to be competitive orientations, however stronger arc treated the (200) texture was increased. The multilayer TiN films has possessed high hardness (up to 42Nm) and the best wear resistance among the specimens. These features were attributed to the presence of dense microstructures that were mainly composed of TiN phase around 5.16㎛ thickness, HF1 adhesion and Ra 35㎚ surface roughness
Design of nano-scale multilayered nitride hard coatings deposited by arc ion plating process: Microstructural and mechanical characterization
