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Tribology Letters
Published in: Tribology Letters 2/2016

01-08-2016 | Original Paper

Investigation of Post-deposition Annealing Effects on Microstructure, Mechanical and Tribological Properties of WC/a-C Nanocomposite Coatings

Authors: Dongqing He, Jibin Pu, Liping Wang, Guangan Zhang, Yongxin Wang, Qunji Xue

Published in: Tribology Letters | Issue 2/2016

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Abstract

Nanocomposite WC/a-C coatings were successfully fabricated using a magnetron sputtering process, and post-deposition annealing was conducted in vacuum for 1 h at the annealing temperatures ranging from 100 to 500 °C. The changes in coating structure, internal stress, hardness, toughness, friction coefficient and wear have been investigated to assess the effects of annealing on microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties of the WC/a-C coatings. The results show that the nanocrystalline WC1−x partially decays to metastable W2C when annealing at 300–500 °C and no graphitization of amorphous carbon matrix starts up to 500 °C. This structural change results in a slightly increased hardness and an improved toughness as well as a gradually decreased internal stress. In addition, the time for the annealed coatings to achieve a low steady friction coefficient decreases with the increase of annealing temperature. An optimized tribological property with low friction coefficient of about 0.06 and enhanced wear resistance of the WC/a-C coating is obtained by annealing at 400 °C. Friction reduction and wear resistance caused by annealing can be attributed to the friction-induced WO3-rich tribofilm which slides against a thin carbon-rich layer on the coating surface resulting in a low friction, and the partition effect of the stationary WO3-rich tribofilm combining with the improved mechanical properties generates a high wear resistance.
next article Temperature-Dependent Friction and Wear Behavior of PTFE and MoS2

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Metadata
Title
Investigation of Post-deposition Annealing Effects on Microstructure, Mechanical and Tribological Properties of WC/a-C Nanocomposite Coatings
Authors
Dongqing He
Jibin Pu
Liping Wang
Guangan Zhang
Yongxin Wang
Qunji Xue
Publication date
01-08-2016
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Tribology Letters / Issue 2/2016
Print ISSN: 1023-8883
Electronic ISSN: 1573-2711
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-016-0699-2

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