Microstructure and Mechanical Properties of Annealed WC/C PECVD Coatings Deposited Using Hexacarbonyl of W with Different Gases

Abstract

The present work studies the tungsten carbide (WC/C) coatings deposited by using Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition (PECVD), with and without gases of Ar and N2. Volatile hexacarbonyl of W was used as a precursor. Their mechanical and tribological properties were evaluated. The following values were obtained by using deposition process with N2 of HIT = 19.7 ± 4.1 GPa, EIT = 221 ± 2.1 GPa, and coefficient of friction (COF) = 0.35 ± 0.09. Secondly, deposition without the aforementioned gas obtained values of HIT = 20.9 ± 2 GPa, EIT = 292 ± 20 GPa, and COF = 0.69 ± 0.05. WC/C coatings were annealed at temperatures of 200, 500, and 800 °C, respectively. Evaluated factors include the introduced properties, the observed morphology, and the structural composition of WC/C coatings. The process of degradation was carried out by using various velocities, depending on used gases and annealing temperatures.

Deformation Behavior of C15E + C Steel under Different Uniaxial Stress Tests

“…As a measure of accordance of simulated and real (measured) values, a coefficient of determination (R 2 ) is established giving information how fit a model is [25]. Some interesting researches regarding mechanical properties of different materials can be found in literature, such as those presented in References [26,27].…”

“…Some interesting researches regarding mechanical properties of different materials can be found in literature, such as those presented in References. [26,27].…”

The Effect of Annealing Temperatures on Selected Properties of WC/C Coatings, Deposited Using Hexacarbonyl Wolfram in an N2-SiH4 Atmosphere

“…This process can be used in an improved CVD method, which is also called the plasma-enhanced (plasma-activated (PA), or plasma-inducted (PI)) chemical vapor deposition (PE CVD, PA CVD, or PI CVD) method. During plasmochemical processes (e.g., based on Ar and N2) the gas mixture is ionized and kinetic energy is transmitted to the used precursors, for example, wolfram carbonyl [21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31], chromium carbonyl [23,26,28,30,[32][33][34][35], and molybdenum carbonyl [21,29,30,31,36], which sublime in the reactor at low temperatures.…”

“…The properties of WC/C coatings deposited by using PE CVD methods have been widely studied [22][23][24][25]27], as well as the properties of the Cr/C [33][34][35] and MoC/C [29] layers. To obtain a higher value of surface hardness and lower COF of WC/C thin coatings, C2H2 [23] and N2 [8,17,27] gases have been used during the deposition process.…”

“…In this study, based on our previous experiments [27], we focused on the microstructure, chemical composition, and selected useful properties of WC/C coatings deposited using an N2-SiH4 gas mixture and tested after annealing at various temperatures (200, 500, and 800 °C); the selected mechanical and tribological properties (i.e., hardness, Young's modulus, and the coefficient of friction) of the deposited WC/C coatings were analyzed. The obtained results are discussed and compared with the results of other studies published in the literature on this field.…”