An investigation of the effect of surface roughness and coating thickness on the friction and wear behaviour of a commercial MoS2-metal coating on AISI 400C steel

The objective of the present experimental work was to investigate the influ ence of substrate surface roughness and coating thickness on the friction a nd wear behaviour of AISI 440C steel-coated with MoST under pure sliding wi th oil lubrication. An AISI 52100 bearing steel ball was slid at 0.5 m/s ag ainst the coated steel disc using an applied normal load of 50 N. This gave a mean Hertzian pressure of 0.75 GPa. Friction and wear maps were construc ted from the experimental data. Wear resistance was greatest when a coating thickness of 1 mu m was used and when the substrate surface roughness (Ra) was 0.1 mu m or below. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.