• Kacprzyńska-Gołacka, Joanna
• Kot, Marcin
• Cempura, Grzegorz
• Kopyściański, Mateusz
• Gruszczyński, Adam
• Kopia, Agnieszka
• Smolik, Jerzy
• Cieniek, Łukasz

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title><jats:p>Low fracture toughness is a common problem encountered by many researchers in the application of pure TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> coatings. To improve their properties, a convenient and useful method is the use of doping, so this study proposes the deposition of TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> enriched with Zr on a steel substrate. The objective of the research was to investigate the impact of Zr addition to TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> coatings on both their mechanical and tribological properties. Four coatings with varying compositions (pure TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub>; TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> doped with 3, 6, and 10 at.% Zr) were deposited using magnetron sputtering from TiB<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> and Zr targets. The coating structures were analyzed by means of X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Nanoindentation, scratch test, and ball-on-disk test were used to determine the mechanical and tribological properties. In most cases, only two factors have a significant impact on the mechanical and tribological properties of the Zr-doped coating. Firstly, a change in the preferred orientation of the coating from (102)(111) to (100) results in increased hardness and wear resistance. Secondly, a reduction in crystallite and column size enhances ductility and fracture toughness by impeding or altering the direction of crack propagation. Based on the study, one can conclude that the optimal Ti<jats:sub>1-x</jats:sub>Zr<jats:sub>x</jats:sub>B<jats:sub>2</jats:sub> properties were obtained for 6 at.% Zr content.</jats:p>

Topics

• Deposition
• impedance spectroscopy
• x-ray diffraction
• atomic force microscopy
• crack
• wear resistance
• hardness
• nanoindentation
• transmission electron microscopy
• ductility
• fracture toughness
• hot-work steel