Wear and corrosion behaviour of AISI 420 stainless steel coated with AlCrN

Abstract

Martensitic Stainless steels are high strength materials used in many industrial applications where a god resistance to wear and corrosion is required, such as blades, shears and cutting tools, valves in the oil and gas, automotive and aerospace components, surgical instruments, among others. To increase even more wear resistance AISI 420 coated by PVD AlCrN is studied in severe wear conditions, simulated in lab as pin on disk with a high hertzian pressure and abrasive tests in ASTM G65. Corrosion was studied in a chloride solution by polarization and impedance tests. The coating was analyzed also in adhesion and hardness using Rockwell C indentation test and nanoindentation. In all tests the performance was compared with an ion nitrided material, another kind of plasma process, in this case a diffusion process, suitable for large components. The coating reached almost 3 microns width and the nitrided case, 10 microns. The substrate hardness was around 5 GPa, the nitrided case reached 18 GPa and the coating 45 GPa. In the pin on disk test against alumina, 10 N load and 500 m, the coefficient of friction was 0.6 in the coated sample, 0.8 in the nitrided sample and the untreated material, but in the mass loss, the difference was much bigger. One order of magnitude less between each other. In the abrasive test with 130 N load, the nitrided sample failed and only the coating passed the test with almost no damage, and mass loss undetectable. The coatings exhibited different corrosion behaviours. Nitriding led to a higher polarization resistance, smaller passivity current and more positive pitting potential that bare steel, evidencing enhanced passivation [1]. But the AlCrN coating showed more active corrosion potential and two orders of magnitude higher currents in the anodic range due to pinholes that prevent sealing the metal. Abrasive testing did not modify the corrosion characteristics of the coated material.