Surface feature variations observed in 52100 steel sliding against a thin boron carbide coating

Boron carbide (B4C) is well known for its high hardness and wear resistance and has been used as a wear-resistant coating. If one of a, pair of contac t surfaces is coated by B4C, it may polish its mating surface and act as a run-in coating. Developing such run-in coatings demands a thorough understa nding of the mating surface evolution in wean This paper reports a study on the characteristics of the surface feature variations of 52100 steel balls run against B4C coated disks. The contact conditions, asperity contact tem perature, pressure and deformation are analyzed. Changes in the surface sta tistical properties, asperity height autocorrelations and power density spe ctra are. monitored for the 52100 steel as the sliding distance increases. The results indicate that under the conditions used in this research, the B 4C coating can accomplish polishing in a sliding distance of less than 2 m. Based on these observations we suggest a new paradigm for an ideal ran-in coating. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science B.V.