C. Subramanian et al., ON THE DESIGN OF COATING SYSTEMS - METALLURGICAL AND OTHER CONSIDERATIONS, Journal of materials processing technology, 56(1-4), 1996, pp. 385-397
Coatings and surface treatments are widely used in combating corrosion
and wear. In particular thin hard coatings of borides, carbides, nitr
ides and oxides - both singly and in combination - have been synthesis
ed by physical and chemical vapour deposition (PVD and CVD) methods, c
haracterised and evaluated for possible applications in manufacturing
industry. Many such coatings in both single and multilayer formats are
now available commercially eg. cutting tools coated with TiN, TiAlN,
TiC/Al2O3/TiN, etc,. To progress further in this direction there is a
need to understand more fully the fundamentals of various material str
engthening mechanisms and their relation to wear resistance in coating
s, as distinct from bulk monolithic materials. This paper reviews the
mechanisms of wear and degradation in several manufacturing scenarios
(especially metal cutting and metal forming), and considers the availa
ble published correlations between wear resistance and microstructure,
hardness, toughness and adhesion of coatings. Based on the knowledge
of strengthening mechanisms in bulk materials, various possible ways t
o strengthen and improve coatings are discussed. A main focus of the p
aper is to consider and review the approach to, and rationale for, the
selection of various possible coating materials - type and nature (eg
. composition, and thickness) - for multilayer and composite coating s
ystems.