The mechanical properties and high-temperature wear behavior of AlCrN coating on the TA15 alloy

CrN coating, with excellent anti-oxidation and good anti-adhesive properties, can effectively protect the substrate from damage caused by friction. However, the low hardness of CrN coating results in low abrasive wear resistance, which limits its further application. Therefore, the coating with a higher hardness to reduce abrasive wear damage can greatly improve their wear resistance. Here an AlCrN coating was prepared on TA15 alloy by reactive magnetron sputtering method. The results showed that the coating had a high hardness (27.85 GPa), and the wear resistance of TA15 alloy was significantly improved at both 20℃ and 500℃. The wear rate of AlCrN coating was only 1/30 and 1/15 compared with TA15 alloy at both 20℃ and 500℃, respectively. The abrasive wear was the primary wear mechanism at 20℃. At 500℃, a large number of oxides was formed due to the increased temperature, which implied that oxidation wear occurred so that oxidation wear and abrasive wear were the primary wear mechanism. The improvement of wear resistance of the AlCrN coating at both temperature primarily owed to the occurrence of multi-phase structure and the dissolution of AlN into CrN.