Tribological behavior of a multilayer Cr/CrN/DLC coating

Abstract

Carbon base coatings are interesting due to their low friction coefficient and good wear resistance, which would allow to reduce energy consumption and extend life span if they are deposited over machine components. In this work, a multilayer coating is analyzed, which is made of chromium compounds with a top layer of chromium dopped hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H:Cr), that provides outstanding tribological properties. Mild alloy steel is used as substrate, with and without plasma nitriding as pretreatment, to study its incidence in the adhesion and sliding wear resistance.