Effect of loading conditions on the scratching behaviour of a TiBN and different DLC top-layered coatings applied on X210Cr12 cold work tool steel

Abstract

Coatings and coated tools are more and more commonly used in the automotive industry due to their performance-increasing ability. During their application, they have to perform good tribological resistance, including scratch resistance, which may be influenced by many factors such as loading force, type of coating, etc. In the current research work, we investigated the scratching behaviour of four different industrially applied wear-resistant coatings – TiBN, TiBN+DLC, TiAlN+DLC, and CrN+DLC – under different constant loadings of F = 10, 15, 50, and 100 N. Based on the obtained results, we established that the monolayer TiBN has a higher resistance to scratch loading than the DLC top-coated systems. Morphological failure analysis revealed that the damage mechanism of the multilayer coatings with di