Improving scratch-resistance and wear-resistance of VN film by deep cryogenic treatment with liquid nitrogen

ABSTRACT

Deep cryogenic treatment is an effective method to improve materials’ properties and has shown a considerable industries application prospect. In this work, deep cryogenic treatment with liquid nitrogen had been applied to deal with multi-arc ion-plated VN film. The results show that after deep cryogenic treatment, the scratch-resistance and wear-resistance of VN film are improved greatly, but the improvement in properties as well as surface roughness evolution is not proportional to the soaking time. The VN film with a soaking time of 20 h has the best mechanical properties, and the VN film with a soaking time of 40 h has the finest scratch-resistance, while the VN film with a soaking time of 30 h has the lowest surface roughness and wear rate. However, the wear mechanisms of these VN films with different soaking time are all adhesive wear and oxidative wear.

KEYWORDS:

• Deep cryogenic treatment
• scratch-resistance
• wear-resistance
• multi-arc ion plating
• VN film

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Zhaobing Cai has got the PhD degree in Harbin Engineering University and now he is employed in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering with the position of assistant research fellow. His research focuses on surface engineering, especially for the design of high-temperature self-lubricating coating by PVD.

Ran Chen is a postgraduate student in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering and he is empolyed in the reaearch of materials characterization of novel high-entropy alloy films by PVD.

Jianguo Qian is a postgraduate student in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering and he works on the tribological property of hard thin films by PVD.

Shujing Zheng is a postgraduate student in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering and she focuses on the corrosion and mechanical property of novel high-entropy alloy films by PVD.

Shenyu Cheng is a postgraduate student in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering and his focus is on the tro-corrosion characterizationof novel high-entropy alloy films by PVD.

Jibin Pu is a professer in Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering and he is mainly engaged in the development and application of new PVD films and painting coatings.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number U1737214 and 51775539]; China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [grant number 2019M652153] and Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation [grant number LZ17E050004].