A Comparative Study on the Hardness of CrN, CrC and CrCN Coatings

Abstract

Improving the surface quality of various machine components can extend their lifespans by several orders of magnitude. Thin film coating is one approach that can be used to enhance machine part surface quality. In this work, three different thin film coatings (i.e, CrN, CrC and Cr-C-N) were statistically compared for surface quality improvement of fishing-net weaving machine component, namely an upper hook. All coatings were deposited utilizing DC sputtering technique. The effects of coating types on hardness for both hardchrome and non hardchrome coated upper hooks were systematically investigated using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) were used to examine the surface quality of the machine component. This study found that CrN gave very high hardness values of 13.042 GPa for hardchrome coated upper hooks and 12.583 GPa for non-hardchrome coated upper hooks. However, the averages hardness of the hardchrome coated and non-hardchrome coated upper hooks were not significantly different at the 95% confidence level.

Effect of carbon content on resistance to cavitation erosion of Cr-C coatings deposited by Arc PVD method

“…Cr-C coatings are promising candidates for various anti-erosion applications due to their ability to form amorphous and nanocrystalline structures [1][2][3][4]. The cavitation-erosion properties of coated materials are significantly affected by the basic properties of the substrate and coating [5,6].…”