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Mechanical Properties of Hard W-C Coating on Steel Substrate Deduced from Nanoindentation and Finite Element Modeling

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Abstract

Mechanical properties of a hard and stiff W-C coating on steel substrate have been investigated using nanoindentation combined with finite element modeling (FEM) and extended FEM (XFEM). The significant pile-up observed around the indents in steel substrate caused an overestimation of hardness and indentation modulus. A simple geometrical model, considering the additional contact surfaces due to pile-up, has been proposed to reduce this overestimation. The presence of W-C coating suppressed the pile-up in the steel substrate and a transition to sink-in behavior occurred. The FEM simulations adequately reproduced the surface topography of the indents in the substrate and coating/substrate systems as well. The maximum principal stresses of the indented W-C/steel coated system were tensile; they were always located in the coating and evolved in 3 stages. Cohesive cracking occurred during loading in the sink-in zone (stage III) when the ultimate tensile strength (σ max ) of the coating was reached. The obtained hardness (H c ), indentation modulus (E c ), yield stress (Y) and strength (σ max ) of the W-C coating were H c   = 20 GPa, E c   = 250 GPa, Y = 9.0 GPa and σ max   = 9.35 GPa, respectively. XFEM resulted in fracture energy of the W-C coating of G = 38.1 J · m-2 and fracture toughness of K IC   = 3.5 MPa · m0.5.

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Acknowledgments

The financial support provided by the projects “Research Centre of Advanced Materials and Technologies for Recent and Future Applications” PROMATECH, ITMS project code: 26220220186, and projects APVV-14-0173, VEGA 2/0098/14 and VEGA 2/0187/15 is kindly acknowledged. The assistance of Petra Hviščová with coating deposition is appreciated.

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  1. Institute of Materials Research of the Slovak Academy of Sciences, Watsonova 47, 04301, Košice, Slovak Republic

    T. Csanádi, D. Németh & F. Lofaj

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  1. T. Csanádi
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Csanádi, T., Németh, D. & Lofaj, F. Mechanical Properties of Hard W-C Coating on Steel Substrate Deduced from Nanoindentation and Finite Element Modeling. Exp Mech 57, 1057–1069 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11340-016-0190-x

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