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Effect of Sputtering Current on the Comprehensive Properties of (Ti,Al)N Coating and High-Speed Steel Substrate

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Abstract

To improve the practical property of (Ti,Al)N coating on a high-speed steel (HSS) substrate, a series of sputtering currents were used to obtain several (Ti,Al)N coatings using a magnetron sputtering equipment. The phase structure, morphology, and components of (Ti,Al)N coatings were characterized by x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy, and x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, respectively. The performance of (Ti,Al)N coatings, adhesion, hardness, and wear resistance was tested using a scratch tester, micro/nanohardness tester, and tribometer, respectively. Based on the structure–property relationships of (Ti,Al)N coatings, the results show that both the Al content and deposition temperature of (Ti,Al)N coatings increased with sputtering current. A high Al content helped to improve the performance of (Ti,Al)N coatings. However, the HSS substrate was softened during the high sputtering current treatment. Therefore, the optimum sputtering current was determined as 2.5 A that effectively increased the hardness and wear resistance of (Ti,Al)N coating.

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Acknowledgments

This work was financially supported by the Basic and Frontier Research Program of Chongqing Municipality (cstc2016jcyjA0451), Scientific and Technological Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (KJ1601104), The Foundation of Chongqing University of Art and Sciences (Y2015XC24, 2017RXC25), Natural Science Foundation of China (21603020), and NSAF (51275323).

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  1. Yongyao Su and Liangliang Tian contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Institute for New Materials Technology, Chongqing University of Arts and Sciences, Chongqing, 402160, People’s Republic of China

    Yongyao Su, Liangliang Tian, Rong Hu, Hongdong Liu, Tong Feng & Jinbiao Wang

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  1. Yongyao Su
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  2. Liangliang Tian
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Correspondence to Rong Hu or Jinbiao Wang.

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Su, Y., Tian, L., Hu, R. et al. Effect of Sputtering Current on the Comprehensive Properties of (Ti,Al)N Coating and High-Speed Steel Substrate. J. of Materi Eng and Perform 27, 2381–2387 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3314-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11665-018-3314-x

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