Friction and Wear Performance of Boron Doped,Undoped Microcrystalline and Fine Grained Composite Diamond Films

Chemical vapor deposition(CVD) diamond films have attracted more attentions due to their excellent mechanical properties. Whereas as-fabricated traditional diamond films in the previous studies don’t have enough adhesion or surface smoothness, which seriously impact their friction and wear performance, and thus limit their applications under extremely harsh conditions. A boron doped, undoped microcrystalline and fine grained composite diamond(BD-UM-FGCD) film is fabricated by a three-step method adopting hot filament CVD(HFCVD) method in the present study, presenting outstanding comprehensive performance, including the good adhesion between the substrate and the underlying boron doped diamond(BDD) layer, the extremely high hardness of the middle undoped microcrystalline diamond(UMCD) layer, as well as the low surface roughness and favorable polished convenience of the surface fine grained diamond(FGD) layer. The friction and wear behavior of this composite film sliding against low-carbon steel and silicon nitride balls are studied on a ball-on-plate rotational friction tester. Besides, its wear rate is further evaluated under a severer condition using an inner-hole polishing apparatus, with low-carbon steel wire as the counterpart. The test results show that the BD-UM-FGCD film performs very small friction coefficient and great friction behavior owing to its high surface smoothness, and meanwhile it also has excellent wear resistance because of the relatively high hardness of the surface FGD film and the extremely high hardness of the middle UMCD film. Moreover, under the industrial conditions for producing low-carbon steel wires, this composite film can sufficiently prolong the working lifetime of the drawing dies and improve their application effects. This research develops a novel composite diamond films owning great comprehensive properties, which have great potentials as protecting coatings on working surfaces of the wear-resistant and anti-frictional components.     

The influence of surface roughness on friction and wear of machine element coatings

The use of low friction coatings like amorphous carbon or metal-doped carbon coatings on machine elements is constantly increasing. Most often, a surface treatment, e.g. grinding and polishing or honing, is required for optimal performance of the coated machine element. This can be time consuming and costly.In this study, the effect of surface roughness on friction and sliding wear of two different coatings, one tungsten containing and one chromium containing coating, were examined using a ball-on-disc test. Ball bearing steel plates were grinded to different surface roughnesses and coated with the two different coatings.The friction was found to depend on surface roughness where the rougher surfaces gave higher friction coefficients. The wear rate for the a-C:W coating was found to be independent of the roughness, whereas the roughness had a strong influence on the wear rate for the a-C:Cr coating. This could partly be explained by a difference in wear mechanism, where fatigue wear was observed for the a-C:Cr coating but not for the a-C:W coating.     

Ultrananocrystalline Diamond Film as a Wear-Resistant and Protective Coating for Mechanical Seal Applications

Mechanical shaft seals used in pumps are critically important to the safe operation of the paper, pulp, and chemical process industry, as well as petroleum and nuclear power plants. Specifically, these seals prevent the leakage of toxic gases and hazardous chemicals to the environment and final products from the rotating equipment used in manufacturing processes. Diamond coatings have the potential to provide negligible wear, ultralow friction, and high corrosion resistance for the sliding surfaces of mechanical seals, because diamond exhibits outstanding tribological, physical, and chemical properties. However, diamond coatings produced by conventional chemical vapor deposition (CVD) exhibit high surface roughness (R_a ≥ 1 μm), which results in high wear of the seal counterface, leading to premature seal failure. To avoid this problem, we have developed an ultrananocrystalline diamond (UNCD) film formed by a unique CH₄/Ar microwave plasma CVD method. This method yields extremely smooth diamond coatings with surface roughness R_a = 20–30 nm and an average grain size of 2–5 nm. We report the results of a systematic test program involving uncoated and UNCD-coated SiC shaft seals. Results confirmed that the UNCD-coated seals exhibited neither measurable wear nor any leakage during long-duration tests that took 21 days to complete. In addition, the UNCD coatings reduced the frictional torque for seal rotation by five to six times compared with the uncoated seals. This work promises to lead to rotating shaft seals with much improved service life, reduced maintenance cost, reduced leakage of environmentally hazardous materials, and increased energy savings. This technology may also have many other tribological applications involving rolling or sliding contacts.     

Friction and wear of self-mated SiC and Si3N4 sliding in water

The friction and wear of self-mated SiC and Si₃N₄ with different initial roughness sliding in water were investigated with pin-on-disk apparatus at normal load of 5 N and sliding speed of 120 mm/s in ambient condition. It was found that, for self-mated Si₃N₄, the wear mechanism for surface smoothening to obtain low friction was tribochemical wear, but for self-mated SiC, it changed from mechanical wear into tribochemical wear with increasing sliding cycles. After running-in in water, self-mated Si₃N₄ exhibited lower steady-state friction coefficient than self-mated SiC did. For these two ceramics, initial and steady-state friction coefficients were hardly dependent on initial roughness. Initial roughness mainly affected the running-in period. The larger the initial roughness, the longer the running-in period, but the running-in period was much shorter for self-mated Si₃N₄ at each initial roughness than that for self-mated SiC.     

Tribological behavior between micro- and nano-crystalline diamond films under dry sliding and water lubrication

The tribological behavior of micro- and nano-crystalline diamond films is evaluated in dry sliding and water lubricating condition. The main wear mechanism is found to be abrasive wear mode induced by self-polishing. Non-diamond components and higher compressive residual stresses are detected in flat MCD films after dry sliding, in comparison to NCD. Origin of decreased friction coefficient in CVD diamond tribosystems under water lubrication is attributed to the effect of water on the formed graphic material and the chemisorbing of diamond surface with H₂O, hydrogen or hydroxyl ions. For the MCD/NCD or NCD/MCD contact, the surface roughness of ball largely determines the stable friction coefficient in dry sliding, where NCD film usually presents higher wear rate.     

腐蚀介质条件下NiCrBSi/WC喷熔层的摩擦学性能研究

采用氧-乙炔火焰喷熔工艺,制备了碳化钨颗粒增强镍基合金喷熔层(NiCrBSi/WC),研究了它在腐蚀介质条件下的摩擦磨损行为与机理,并考察了载荷、滑动速度对其摩擦磨损性能的影响规律。研究结果表明:NiCrBSi/WC具有良好的耐腐蚀磨损性能,且当WC含量为20%时,腐蚀磨损率最低;WC含量超过20%后,由于喷熔层存在“腐蚀原电池”效应,其腐蚀磨损率增大。NiCrBSi/WC的腐蚀磨损率随载荷增加而变大,随速度增大而减小。载荷的增加使喷熔层的犁削磨损加剧,导致摩擦系数和磨损率增大;速度的增大造成摩擦界面温度上升,可生成摩擦转移膜,从而降低了喷熔层的磨损率。     

The effect of phosphating on the friction and wear properties of grey cast iron

The friction and wear resistance of two commercial manganese phosphate coatings have been evaluated. Grey cast iron wear pins were treated by the two processes and were tested by sliding against a steel disc, under both lubricated and dry sliding wear conditions.Phosphating increases the sliding distance to scuffing as well as the scuffing load, whilst marginally reducing the coefficient of friction. No advantage was found in phosphating dry sliding surfaces.Phosphating reduces the likelihood of adhesive wear in marginal or poorly lubricated sliding couples. The choice of phosphate coating is primarily dependent on the surface finish of the sliding counterface; thin coatings are suitable if the counterface is smooth but thicker coatings are superior against rougher surfaces.     

Mechanical and tribological properties of amorphous carbon films

The mechanical and tribological properties of amorphous carbon films have been studied in more detail in recent years because these films (a) can be deposited near room temperature, thus allowing film deposition on common engineering alloys (i.e., aluminum and steel) without altering their mechanical properties, and (b) are smooth and conform to surface roughness of the substrate, thus requiring no post deposition processing. In addition, amorphous carbon films exhibit low unlubricated sliding friction in contact with steel and ceramics which is comparable to that of steel against steel in a lubricated contact. The wear resistance of these films is also better than Ti‐based hard coatings. Further improvement in film tribological properties can be achieved by modifying film chemical composition. Because of these attractive features, amorphous carbon films have been evaluated in several applications including automotive, electronic and biomedical engineering. However, environmental factors such as oxygen and humidity have been found to influence tribological properties significantly. This paper reviews the current understanding of the tribological properties of both hydrogenated and non‐hydrogenated amorphous carbon films, the mechanisms responsible for low friction coefficient and identifies areas that require further research. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Evolution of wear,roughness, and friction of Alloy 600 superalloy surfaces in water-submersed sliding

Self-mated wear and friction of Alloy 600 superalloy was studied in a water-submersed ring-on-rod configuration, loading the side of a 6.35 mm diameter rod across the flat surface of a rotating annular ring of 100 mm outer diameter and 70 mm inner diameter producing two sliding contacts along the ring. Tests were conducted at sliding speeds of 0.178 and 0.330 m/s for sliding distances of 100 m. Normal loads of 51 and 204 N were applied, and initial R_a surface roughnesses of the rings along the sliding direction were either smooth (～0.2 μm) or rough (～7.5 μm). Increased initial ring roughness caused a ～20-fold increase in rod wear at the lighter load, whereas at the heavier load increased initial roughness only caused a ～4-fold increase in wear. At lower initial ring roughness the 4-fold decrease in normal load caused a large (one order-of-magnitude) decrease in rod wear, whereas for rings of higher initial roughness the 4-fold decrease in normal load caused only minor (2-fold or less) decreases in rod wear. Wear during this 100 m sliding distance only experienced a minor effect from the 1.8-fold change in sliding speed, as did friction. In all cases friction coefficient rapidly settled into the range 0.6–0.7, except in the cases of lower load on rings of lower initial roughness where friction coefficient remained above 1 for most of this sliding duration. At this lower load the initial ～0.2 μm rod roughnesses increased to nearly 0.8 μm by the 100 m sliding distance, whereas at the higher load this same sliding distance resulted in roughnesses returning near to the initial 0.2 μm. It was hypothesized more highly loaded cases also went through initial roughening prior to smoothening back to 0.2 μm roughness within the 100 m sliding distance, and given additional sliding the more lightly loaded cases would also experience subsequent smoothening. Increasing sliding distance to 400 m, roughnesses indicated a smoothening back to 0.2 μm level during those lightly loaded tests, with friction coefficient correspondingly dropping from 1 into the 0.6–0.7 range observed in all other cases. Extended sliding to 400 m at light loading against rings of lower initial roughness also allowed a rod wear rate which increased with increased sliding distance to be observed, approaching the same rate observed against initially rough rings within the 100 m sliding distance.     

Interface roughness effect on friction map under fretting contact conditions

In many industrial applications where fretting damage is observed in the contact (e.g. rotor/blade, electrical contacts, assembly joint, axe/wheel, clutch) the external loadings or geometry design cannot be changed. Therefore, the surface preparation and finishing process become essential to control and reduce the damage caused by fretting. In this paper, the authors present the experimental study of the initial surface roughness and machining process influence on fretting conditions in both partial and full sliding regimes. Surfaces prepared by milling and smooth abrasive polishing processes have been analysed. The influence of roughness on sliding behaviour and analysis of friction have been reported. Also, the contact pressure influence and qualitative analysis of fretting wear scar have been presented.