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Friction and Wear Properties of Graphite-Like Carbon Films Deposited on Different Substrates with a Different Interlayer Under High Hertzian Contact Stress

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Abstract

Four types of graphite-like carbon (GLC) films were deposited on different substrates (Ti6Al4V, WC-27CrNi) with a different interlayer (TiC/Ti, TiC/Ti/TiN) using an unbalanced magnetron sputtering system. The effect of substrate and interlayer on the microstructure and properties of the studied GLC films was then investigated using different characterization techniques. The results show that both the substrate and interlayer had an obvious influence on the tribological properties of the studied GLC films even though there was no significant structural difference between these films. Specifically, a substrate with a high hardness was propitious to achieving superior tribological behaviors for carbon film even with a different interlayer. However, the interlayer had a distinct influence on the tribological properties of the carbon film deposited on different substrates, and this effect varied with the hardness property of the substrate. For a hard substrate, the wear rate and wear life were similar irrespective of the interlayer. For a soft substrate, the addition of a TiN interlayer improved the wear life sevenfold compared to the film with only a TiC/Ti interlayer, but the wear rate for a film with and without a TiN interlayer was approximately the same. The obvious discrepancy between wear life and wear rate for a carbon film deposited on soft substrate was closely related with the film adhesion strength and plastic deformation of the substrate materials. Based on these results, it can be concluded that the wear life is a better parameter than wear rate in terms of characterization of the wear resistance of carbon film once the applied load causes the plastic deformation of the substrate.

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Acknowledgments

The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant no. 50705093), the Innovative Group Foundation from NSFC (Grant no. 50421502), and the National 973 Project (no. 2007 CB607601) for financial support. We also thank Dr. Guoliang Hou and Lingqian Wang (LICP, Chinese Academy of Sciences) for providing and characterizing the substrate materials.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Solid Lubrication, Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Yongjun Wang, Hongxuan Li, Xiaohong Liu, Li Ji, Yanxia Wu, Yanhong Lv, YingYing Fu, Huidi Zhou & Jianmin Chen

  2. Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yongjun Wang, Yanxia Wu, Yanhong Lv & YingYing Fu

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  1. Yongjun Wang
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  2. Hongxuan Li
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Correspondence to Jianmin Chen.

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Wang, Y., Li, H., Liu, X. et al. Friction and Wear Properties of Graphite-Like Carbon Films Deposited on Different Substrates with a Different Interlayer Under High Hertzian Contact Stress. Tribol Lett 46, 243–254 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-012-9943-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-012-9943-6

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