Plain and fretting fatigue behavior of Ti6Al4V alloy coated with TiAlN thin film

• TiAlN coating was applied to improve fatigue properties of Ti6Al4V alloy.
• The effects of two different power parameters were investigated.
• TiAlN coating was very effective on improving the fatigue behavior of the alloy.
• A novel approach was proposed to define fretting fatigue life theoretically.
• Finite element analysis results were close to experimental results.

In this study, plain and fretting fatigue behaviors of Ti6Al4V alloy coated with TiAlN thin film by using closed field unbalanced magnetron sputtering system (CFUBMS) were investigated. Coating process was carried out in two different power parameters as dc bias and pulse. It was observed that both plain and fretting fatigue resistance of Ti6Al4V alloy improved after TiAlN coating process. Pulsed films were more effective than biased films in terms of fatigue resistance. Also, fretting fatigue behavior of uncoated and coated specimens was examined with finite element analysis. The finite element analysis results were analogous with experimental test results.