Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61

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Wear
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wear

Effects of elastic modulus mismatch between coating and substrate

on the friction and wear properties of TiN and TiAlN coating systems
Xiao Huang a, Izhak Etsion b, Tianmin Shao a,n
a
State Key Laboratory of Tribology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 10084, China
b
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Technion, Haifa 32000, Israel

art ic l e i nf o a b s t r a c t

Article history: TiN and TiAlN coatings deposited on copper, high speed steel and cemented carbide are used to study the
Received 20 January 2015 effect of elastic modulus mismatch between coating and substrate on the friction and wear properties.
Received in revised form Wear volume and failure mechanism are analyzed by optical profilometer, scanning electron microscope
26 May 2015
and focused ion beam techniques. It is found that the friction and wear properties of different coating
Accepted 28 May 2015
systems are dependent on the substrate elastic modulus and hardness. Moreover, the wear performance
Available online 9 June 2015
of coating systems is related to the elastic modulus mismatch between coating and substrate materials. A
Keywords: weakening effect of substrate plastic yielding in hard coating system subjected to tangential loading is
PVD coating detected experimentally.
Sliding wear
& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Electron microscopy
Hardness

1. Introduction
TiN and TiAlN coatings are widely used to improve the working
life of cutting tools [1–3]. In addition, these coatings are found in
increasing number of applications such as plastic injection molds
[4], artificial joints [5] and dental alloys [6], in which, the substrate
is much compliant compared with the coating. In order to improve
service life in these applications, the tribological performance of
TiN and TiAlN coatings have been extensively investigated. Liu
et al. [7] deposited TiN and TiAlN coatings on hard WC–Co alloy by
arc-evaporation and tested the friction and wear properties using
high-speed ball-on-disk method with a load of 10 N. The wear scar
was further analyzed by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and
X-ray diffraction (XRD). The results showed that TiAlN coating had
better friction and wear performance than TiN coating and the
failure mechanism of these two coatings consisted of both oxida-
tion and abrasive wear. Caliskan et al. [8] deposited TiN and TiAlN
on cold-worked tool steel with hardness of 700 HV using a mag-
netron sputtering system. Long distance sliding test was carried
out using ball-on-disk configuration with a load of 5 N. The results
showed that TiAlN had lower friction coefficient and better anti-
wear performance than TiN coating. It was also concluded that the
failure mechanism consisted of oxidation and abrasive wear. Mo
et al. [9] deposited TiAlN coating on cemented carbide with arc
n
Corresponding author. Tel.: þ 86 1062783160; fax: þ86 1062781379.
E-mail address: shaotm@tsinghua.edu.cn (T. Shao).
physical vapor deposition and tested its wear performance using
both rotating and reciprocating configurations with a load of 5 N.
Like the results in Refs. [7,8], here too the main mechanism of
wear consisted of oxidation and abrasion. Takadoum et al. [10]
deposited TiN coating with reactive ion plating on two different
steels with hardness of 250 and 880 HV, respectively. The friction
and wear properties of the two coating systems were tested by
ball-on-disk configuration with a load of 25 N. The friction coef-
ficient of TiN on the hard steel remained constant and low
throughout the test, while for the TiN on the soft steel it increased
rapidly to 0.7. SEM characterization of the wear scars showed that
the TiN coating on soft steel suffered severe cracks and large wear
particles, but the TiN coating on hard steel remained intact with
very moderate wear. Ceschini et al. [11] tested the friction and
wear properties of TiN and TiAlN coatings on Ti6Al4V alloy using
cylinder-on-flat configuration with loads ranging from 5 to 35 N.
The results showed a transition, after a certain sliding distance,
from low friction and negligible wear to high friction and severe
wear. The TiAlN coating underwent this transition at an applied
load of 15 N and sliding distance of 1500 m, while the TiN coating
underwent this transition at a higher load of 20 N and longer
sliding distance of 4800 m. The SEM graphs showed cracks and
removal of coating after the transition point. The failure mechan-
ism was ascribed to the low load-carrying capability of thin hard
coatings on a much softer substrate. The above literature review
reveals that substrate material does have an effect on the friction
and wear properties, as well as on the failure mechanism, of TiN
and TiAlN coating systems. However, a systematic study of

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wear.2015.05.016
0043-1648/& 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61
substrate effects on the tribological performance of TiN and TiAlN
coating is still limited. Hence, this is one of the main goals of this
paper.
On the other hand, most of the above literature showed that
the harder TiAlN coating demonstrated better friction and wear
properties compared with the softer TiN coating. Ref. [11] is an
exception where the softer TiN coating on Ti6Al4V alloy performed
better than the harder TiAlN coating, but an in-depth explanation
of this phenomenon was not provided in Ref. [11]. We believe that
the smaller difference between the elastic modulus of coating and
substrate in the case of the TiN compared to that of the TiAlN
coating might be the main reason. A few studies proposed that
thin hard coatings may cause a weakening effect by reducing the
resistance of the coating/substrate system to onset of plasticity.
Using finite element method (FEM), Komvopoulos [12,13] was
perhaps the first to notice that indentation of thin hard coatings
on soft substrates may cause higher stresses in the substrate,
which have a detrimental effect on the resistance to plastic
yielding. This phenomenon has also been studied by Sun et al. [14]
and by Vander Zawag and Field [15] using FEM and similar results
to Refs. [12,13] were obtained. Recently, Goltsberg et al. [16] and
Goltsberg and Etsion [17] studied the plasticity onset in coated
spheres loaded by rigid flat using FEM. The results showed that the
elastic modulus mismatch between the coating and the substrate
may introduce additional stresses in the coating system to initiate
premature plastic yield. In our previous work [18], it was experi-
mentally validated that elastic modulus mismatch between coat-
ing and substrate could reduce the resistance to plastic yield
inception in coating systems. The weakening effect studies were
limited so far to normal loading only. It is possible, however, that
this weakening effect may also exist under combined normal and
tangential loading. In this case it may affect the friction and wear
properties of thin hard coating systems. The validation of this
weakening effect is another goal of this paper.
According to the above two goals, TiN and TiAlN coatings were
deposited in the present study on different substrate materials.
Friction and wear properties were investigated using a ball-on-flat
configuration. Then, the failure mechanism was analyzed with
SEM and focused ion beam (FIB). Afterwards, a potential weak-
ening effect in terms of plastic yielding was studies by cross-sec-
tion electron back scatter diffraction (EBSD). The influence of
weakening effect on the wear performance of a coating system
was also discussed.
2. Experimental details
2.1. Specimen preparation
Copper (Cu), M2 high-speed steel (HSS) and Yt798 WC–Co hard
alloy with the nominal structure of 78-WC-8-Co-8-TaC-6-TiC were
used as substrates for coatings deposition. The flat and square
(15  15 mm2) substrate specimens were polished to a surface
roughness of approximately 0.1 μm and then ultrasonically
cleaned in acetone, ethanol and deionized water, subsequently.
Multi-arc ion plating was used for coating deposition. For the
deposition process, the chamber was first exhausted to a base
vacuum of 5  10  4 Pa to remove impurities. Then, the substrates
were further cleaned by glow discharge for decontamination with
bias voltage of 800 V. Following this, working gas Ar was intro-
duced into the chamber to deposit a Ti transition layer with
thickness of about 50 nm. Then, N2 was used to deposit TiN
coating with Ti target and TiAlN coating with TiAl alloy target. The
working arc current was 60 A and the bias voltage was 100 V.
The elastic moduli and hardnesses of the coatings and sub-
strates were evaluated by nanoindentation (CSM Instrument
55
Fig. 1. A schematic illustration of the ball-on-flat configuration test.
Nano-indentation Tester NHT2) with a load of 5 mN. Average
values were obtained from 16 repetitions of each measurement.
The visual mode were utilized to keep the nanoindentation from
surface defects to improve the confidence of the measurements. In
order to measure the thickness of the coating, a partially masked
silicon wafer was coated along with the various substrates to
prepare steps between its covered and uncovered parts. Then, the
coating thickness was determined by measuring the step height
using a profilometer (ADE Phase MicroXAM).
2.2. Friction and wear characterization
Friction and wear tests were carried out using a tribometer (CETR
UMT-3) with reciprocating ball-on-flat configuration as shown in
Fig. 1. The lower specimen coated flat was mounted on a recipro-
cating stage. The upper specimen was a sapphire ball with a radius of
6 mm. The sapphire ball can be regarded as rigid due to its high
elastic modulus of about 500 GPa and hardness of 40 GPa. In order to
focus the study on stress induced failure for the coating systems, a
relatively small normal load of 0.5 N was applied to avoid potential
adhesion effect as much as possible. The friction coefficient was
determined by acquiring the normal and tangential forces simulta-
neously using a multi-axis force sensor. The reciprocating stroke was
3 mm with a frequency of 5 Hz to accomplish a total of 3000 cycles
for each test. Six repetitions were carried out on each specimen to
confirm the repeatability. In order to evaluate the wear performance
of different coating/substrate systems quantitatively, the wear
volume was measured by the profilometer.
2.3. Failure mechanism analysis
SEM (FEI Quanta 200) was used to examine the worn surface of
the coated samples. FIB was used to further analyze the cross-
section of the wear scars. In addition, in order to evaluate the
effect of substrate plastic deformation on the failure of a coating
system, the crystalline distortion of the Cu substrate beneath the
TiN and TiAlN coatings, as typical example, was tested by EBSD
(Nordly Max2), which is sensitive in measuring plasticity induced
lattice bending and lattice imperfection [19]. The conventional
FIB–TEM preparation method [20] was used for preparing the
cross-sectional EBSD slices having the thickness of about 2 μm to
avoid possible electron transmission. The ion milling of the EBSD
slice is quite important since the flatness can significantly affect
the test result.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Coating and substrate properties
The elastic modulus and hardness of the various coating and
substrate materials, as well as the coating thickness are summarized
in Table 1. Table 2 presents the elastic moduli ratio, Eco/Esu, of the
different coating/substrate combinations. As can be seen from
Tables 1 and 2, the TiAlN coating is harder and more rigid than the
TiN coating. For the substrate material, the hardness is proportional
56 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61

to the elastic modulus. The Cu substrate is quite soft and compliant, was quite similar; however, the substrate material itself had a sig-
yielding a large elastic modulus mismatch between coating and nificant effect on the friction result. In general, the friction process can
substrate. The HSS substrate has a moderate hardness and elastic be divided into two stages. The first stage represents the run-in pro-
modulus. The WC–Co substrate is more rigid than the two coatings, cess with rapid increase in the friction coefficient due to the flattening
but its hardness is less than that of the coatings due to the metallic of asperities and increasing of contact area. The substrate material
bonding of the alloy. properties can affect the coating/substrate systems' load bearing
capacity to resist plowing and reduce contact area. Indeed, the WC–Co
3.2. Friction coefficient and wear volume substrate, with its highest elastic modulus and hardness, had the
lowest friction coefficient with both the TiN coating (Fig. 2(a)) and the
Fig. 2 presents the evolution, with reciprocation cycles, of friction TiAlN coating (Fig. 2(b)). Meanwhile, the TiN/Cu and TiAlN/Cu systems
coefficient of the different TiN and TiAlN coating systems. The friction presented the highest friction coefficient probably due to the plowing
behavior of the TiN and TiAlN coatings on a given substrate material effect caused by the rigid sapphire ball. In addition, the friction coef-
ficient of all the systems increased monotonically without noticeable
Table 1 fluctuations in the first stage, indicating that the coatings remained
Mechanical properties of coatings and substrates. intact. After the run-in process, in the second stage, more fluctuations
and abrupt changes in the friction coefficient can be detected with the
Material Coating/ Nano-indentation Elastic mod- Thickness
Cu and HSS substrates in both the TiN and TiAlN coating systems. This
substrate hardness (GPa) ulus (GPa) (μm)
might be caused by breaking and peeling-off of the coating material.
TiN Coating 23.2 7 1.4 270 718 1.0 The fluctuations in friction coefficient of the TiN/WC–Co and TiAlN/
TiAlN Coating 28.2 7 2.1 409 738 1.3 WC–Co systems are milder but their friction coefficients exceed these
Cu Substrate 1.2 7 0.2 126 78 – of the other systems as the number of cycles increases. This reflects
HSS Substrate 8.17 0.9 227 712 –
WC–Co Substrate 14.9 7 1.6 421 739 –
the native friction coefficient between TiN and TiAlN coatings and the
sapphire material under the current test conditions. The influence of
the substrate was limited due to the relative small mismatch in elastic
moduli and hardness between TiN and TiAlN coatings and WC–Co
Table 2 substrate. The lower friction coefficient in the two other systems can
Mean value of elastic modulus ratio (Eco/Esu) of different coating/substrate
be partly contributed by the exposed softer substrate materials.
combinations.
Fig. 3 shows the 3D morphology of typical wear scars of the
Eco/Esu 6 different coating/substrate systems measured by a profilometer. Like
with the friction coefficient, the substrates also played an evident role
Cu HSS WC–Co in the coating systems' wear performance. In the Cu substrate cases,
TiN 2.14 1.19 0.64
TiAlN 3.25 1.80 0.97
Fig. 3(a) and (d), the surfaces were seriously worn and yielded a wear
groove with depth of about 0.6 and 0.8 μm and width of 150 and
200 μm, respectively. Significant pile-up can be detected at the edges
of the wear scars in these two systems, revealing that plastic flow
occurred under the friction force. In the HSS substrate cases, Fig. 3
(b) and (e), the wear performance of the TiN and TiAlN coatings was
improved, yielding wear grooves having depth of about 0.4 and
0.6 μm and width of 100 and 120 μm, respectively. The pile-up at the
edges of the wear scars was quite moderate due to the high hardness
of HSS. Fig. 3(c) and (f) shows superior wear performance of the TiN/
WC–Co and TiAlN/WC–Co systems with wear groove depth of about
0.3 and 0.2 μm and width of 60 and 50 μm, respectively. Pile-up effect
was negligible in these two systems due to the very high hardness of
the WC–Co substrate.
Fig. 4 shows quantitatively the average wear volumes and error
bars of 6 repetition tests for each of the different coating/substrate
systems. Note that the artificial spikes in Fig.3 have been filtered to
eliminate their effect on the wear volume measurement. The
average wear volumes for the TiN coated Cu, HSS and WC–Co
systems are 4.4  105, 1.6  105 and 1.1  105 μm3, respectively. For
the TiAlN coated Cu, HSS and WC–Co systems, the average wear
volumes are 5.3  105, 2.9  105 and 0.68  105 μm3, respectively. It
should be noted here that measured wear volumes may include
plastic deformation component in addition to real material loss
[21]. To evaluate the effect of such plastic deformation, indentation
tests were performed using the same 6 mm sapphire ball and
same load of 0.5 N as in the wear tests. The residual depth after
unloading was used to estimate the effect of plastic deformation
on the measured wear volume. It was found that for the Cu and
HSS substrates this effect is about 10% or less, while for the hardest
WC–Co substrate it is practically negligible.
As can be seen from Fig. 4 (and Tables 1 and 2) the wear volume in
all the coating systems decreases with increasing elastic modulus and
Fig. 2. Friction coefficient of TiN and TiAlN coatings on different substrates. (a) TiN hardness of the substrate. Another interesting observation is the effect
coating on three substrates. (b) TiAlN coating on three substrates. of the ratio Eco/Esu, which reduces the wear volume with any given
 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61 57

Fig. 3. 3D morphology images of different coating/substrate combinations. (a) TiN coating on Cu substrate. (b) TiN coating on HSS substrate. (c) TiN coating on WC–Co
substrate. (d) TiAlN coating on Cu substrate. (e) TiAlN coating on HSS substrate. (f) TiAlN coating on WC–Co substrate.

Esu o1) the TiAlN coating with the larger moduli ratio performs better
than the TiN coating. In the current study the best case in terms of
wear resistance was obtained with the harder TiAlN coating on the
hardest WC–Co substrate, while the worst wear resistance was
obtained with the same harder TiAlN coating but on the softest Cu
substrate. The present effect of Eco/Esu on the wear is similar to the
behavior reported in Ref. [11] for TiN and TiAlN coatings that were
deposited on Ti6Al4V alloy. The elastic modulus of Ti6Al4V is about
110 GPa and hence, the wear tests in [11] belong to the case of Eco/
Esu 41. Indeed, in Ref. [11], like in our test, the TiN coating, having the
lower moduli ratio, had better wear resistance than the TiAlN coating.

3.3. Wear mechanism analysis

To investigate the wear mechanism of the different coating/

Fig. 4. Wear volume of different coating systems.
substrate when it becomes closer to unity (minimum mismatch).
Hence, with the Cu and HSS substrates (Eco/Esu 41) the wear volume
is smaller with the TiN coating that has smaller moduli ratio com-
pared to the TiAlN coating, while with the WC–Co substrate (Eco/
substrate combinations, the wear scars were further analyzed by
SEM and FIB. Fig. 5 shows the SEM graphs of wear scars generated
on the surfaces of TiN and TiAlN coatings deposited on the dif-
ferent substrates. Partial cracks can be detected in Fig. 5(a), (b),
(d) and (e) at the center of the wear grooves. The fluctuations of
friction coefficient shown in Fig. 2, during the second stage, for the
58 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61

Fig. 5. Typical SEM images of wear scar of different coating/substrate combinations. (a) TiN coating on Cu substrate. (b) TiN coating on HSS substrate. (c) TiN coating on WC–
Co substrate. (d) TiAlN coating on Cu substrate. (e) TiAlN coating on HSS substrate. (f) TiAlN coating on WC–Co substrate.

TiN/Cu, TiN/HSS systems and TiAlN/Cu, TiAlN/HSS systems should
be caused by coating peeling off from the substrate as discussed in
Section 3.2. Indeed, in Fig. 5(a) and (d), cracks were extensively
generated and propagated in the TiN/Cu and TiAlN/Cu systems,
yielding severe wear in these two coating systems. In Fig. 5(b) and
(e), the cracks were restricted to a smaller area at the center of the
grooves. Differently from the above four coating systems, the wear
grooves in Fig. 5(c) and (f) were free from any cracks in the TiN/
WC–Co and TiAlN/WC–Co systems. The wear grooves in these two
systems were probably caused by abrasive wear due to the high
hardness of the counterpart sapphire ball.
Fig. 6 shows the cross-sectional SEM graphs of the FIB cuts
made at the locations indicated within the wear scars in Fig. 5. A
thin layer of Platinum was deposited by the FIB system to protect
the specimens' surface from ion etching. Cracks can be clearly
detected in the TiN/Cu, TiN/HSS and TiAlN/Cu, TiAlN/HSS systems
in Fig. 6(a), (b) and (d), (e), respectively, which is consistent with
the surface images in Fig. 5. These cracks had already penetrated
the coating thickness. The extending and intersecting of such
through thickness cracks have probably caused coating peeling off
in these coating systems. Notice that the cracks in the TiN/Cu and
TiAlN/Cu systems are more obvious and with larger size than in
the corresponding coatings on HSS substrate. This agrees with the
more severe wear and larger wear volume in the TiN/Cu and
TiAlN/Cu systems shown in Figs. 4 and 5. Differently from the
above situations, cracks cannot be detected in the TiN/WC–Co and
TiAlN/WC–Co systems as shown in Fig. 6(c) and (f). Again, this
 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61 59

Fig. 6. Cross-sectional SEM images of typical FIB cut of different coating systems. (a) TiN coating on Cu substrate. (b) TiN coating on HSS substrate. (c) TiN coating on WC–Co
substrate. (d) TiAlN coating on Cu substrate. (e) TiAlN coating on HSS substrate. (f) TiAlN coating on WC–Co substrate.

supports the small volume of abrasive wear of these two coatings
on WC–Co substrate.
Knowledge of the stress field is essential for a failure char-
acterization and wear mechanism analysis. Tensile stresses are
closely related to crack generation and propagation that eventually
may result in cohesive failure of a coating system. In some pre-
vious studies [22,23] it was found that larger elastic modulus
mismatch between coating and substrate can cause higher tensile
stresses inside the coating. This may explain the poorer perfor-
mance of the TiAlN coating that has larger modulus mismatch
compared to the TiN coating when deposited on the Cu and HSS
substrates (see Table 2). When these two coatings were deposited
on the WC–Co substrate, the coating was free from cracks and
abrasion became the main wear mechanism. In this situation, the
hard TiAlN coating had better resistance to abrasion than the TiN
coating. Thus, the combination of hard coating and hard substrate
yielded the optimal wear performance among all the coating
systems.
3.4. Weakening effect of substrate plastic yielding
Several studies reported that substrate plastic deformation took
place in friction and wear tests and this affected the failure of a
coating system. Jungk et al. [24] showed clear evidence that plastic
strain accumulated in Ni and NiMn alloy substrates during wear
test with a DLC coating system, leading to coating breakdown and
60 X. Huang et al. / Wear 338-339 (2015) 54–61
Fig. 7. Cu substrate crystalline distortion beneath TiN and TiAlN coatings.
peeling off in DLC coating. Xie et al. [25] showed plastic defor-
mation in stainless steel substrate during a scratch test, which
caused cracks inside the DLC coating. It is possible that similar
substrate plastic deformation existed in our tests especially with
the Cu substrate, which presented more severe crack generation
and propagation in the coatings. In the friction test, the atoms in
the Cu crystalline are extruded from their balanced positions due
to the applied stress. When the equivalent Von mises stress
exceeds the elastic limit of the crystalline, the atoms cannot
restore to their original balanced position and the crystalline is
distorted, yielding plastic deformation. Fig. 7 shows the crystalline
distortion results measured by EBSD in the Cu substrate beneath
the TiN and TiAlN coatings following the friction and wear tests.
The Cu crystalline orientation at a depth of 3 μm beneath the
interface was taken as a reference since the misorientation below
this depth was negligible. The curves in Fig. 7 were acquired by
comparing the crystalline orientation at a certain depth with the
reference orientation. The EBSD results showed that the maximum
distortion degree in the Cu substrate beneath TiN coating is about
4°, which is smaller than that in the case of the TiAlN coating with
a maximum distortion of about 7°. We notice that the harder TiAlN
coating did not protect the substrate from the applied stress better
than the TiN coating did. In the introduction, we mentioned the
possible weakening effect of plastic yielding inception in poorly
designed hard coating/soft substrate systems under normal load.
Here, the EBSD results verified similar weakening effect under
combined normal and tangential loading, which is more applicable
in real applications than just a normal load alone. This weakening
effect is because larger elastic modulus mismatch between coating
and substrate can easier introduce plastic yielding in the substrate.
The larger scale of substrate plastic deformation could cause the
loss of sufficient support for the hard coating and contribute to the
crack formation and propagation inside the coating material. The
above weakening effect of substrate plastic deformation and the
large tensile stress in the TiAlN/Cu system, as discussed in Section
3.3, gave the worst wear performance among all the coating
systems.
4. Conclusions
Ball-on-flat friction and wear tests were carried out on TiN and
TiAlN coatings deposited on Cu, HSS and WC–Co substrates. It was
found that the substrate properties have an evident effect on the
friction coefficient evolution. The wear performance of a coating
system was also dependent on the substrate properties. For a
typical coating material, the wear performance of a coating system
is improved with the increasing of substrate elastic modulus and
hardness. The mismatch of elastic modulus between coating and
substrate also affects the wear performance. It was found that on
the Cu and the HSS substrates, where the modulus ratio Eco/Esu
was larger than 1, the softer TiN coating performed better than the
harder TiAlN. On the WC–Co substrate, where the modulus ratio
Eco/Esu was smaller than 1, the TiAlN coating performed better
than the TiN. Hence, for every substrate in this study the preferred
coating for less wear was that with the smaller mismatch of elastic
modulus between coating and substrate. The best wear resistance
among all the coating systems was obtained with TiAlN coating on
WC–Co substrate.
The SEM and FIB analyses showed that cracks generation easily
occurred for the TiN and TiAlN coatings on Cu and HSS substrates.
This could be caused by contact induced tensile stresses and
substrate plastic deformation. No cracks could be detected when
these coatings were deposited on WC–Co substrate. The EBSD
analysis showed a potential weakening effect in the case of the Cu
substrate. More plastic deformation was observed beneath the
harder TiAlN coating than the TiN coating, probably due to the
larger elastic modulus mismatch in the former case.
The above experiments are significant in optimizing thin hard
coating systems. Increasing the hardness of the soft substrate may
significantly improve the systems' wear performance. In addition,
the mismatch of elastic modulus between coating and substrate
can affect the stress distribution under the applied loads. A larger
mismatch can introduce additional stresses and may result in a
weakening effect even when the coating material is rigid and hard.
The present experiments were limited to a single coating
thickness and a single sphere radius. It may be interesting, in a
future work, to study the possible effect of coating thickness on
optimizing the friction and wear properties of TiN and TiAlN
coating systems. Moreover, it may be informative to analyze the
coating systems at the point of failure onset in the future work,
since it could make clear the exact mechanism of failure.
Acknowledgments
We thank the State Key Basic Research Program (Grant no.
2012CB934101) and the Major National Science and Technology
Project of China (Grant no. 2010ZX04014-071). The authors would
also acknowledge the support by the Technion President Fund and
the Tribology Science Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Tribol-
ogy, Tsinghua University SKLT12A01.
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