Phase constituents and mechanical properties of laser in-situ synthesized TiCN/TiN composite coating on Ti-6Al-4V

Laser in-situ synthesis technology at room temperature was applied to obtain TiCN/TiN composite coating. A pulsed Nd:YAG laser (wavelength 1064 nm) was used to melt the mixture of Ti and C powder. Pure nitrogen gas with a pressure of 0.4 MPa was introduced coaxially together with laser beam to the melting pool to react with Ti and C atoms and in-situ synthesize TiCN/TiN composite coating. The coating consists of TiC0.3N0.7, TiN and TiN0.3, but the proportions of these three constituents vary with the laser power density. SEM results revealed that dendrites were oriented in accordance with the heat flow and a metallurgical bonding between the coating and the substrate was achieved. The in-situ synthesized TiCN/TiN composite coating, with a thickness of about 200 μm, increased the hardness and wear resistance compared to the bare Ti-6Al-4V substrate. A remarkable improvement of the average microhardness (3–4 times) and an enhancement of the wear resistance (10–11 times) are observed by laser in-situ synthesizing TiCN/TiN composite coating.