Effect of the microstructure of thermally sprayed coatings on friction and wear response under lubricated and dry sliding conditions

Five thermally sprayed coatings, considered for application in earth moving vehicle undercarriage components, undergoing consecutively lubricated and dry sliding wear, were prepared and investigated. Four different wear tests were employed to reveal the factors controlling the wear response under different contact conditions. An approach considering the local and overall strength of the coating in connection with the knowledge of contact stresses helped to understand the major wear modes under specific contact conditions for the materials tested. The testing illustrated that in situations with lower contact stresses the contact response of the coating may not be directly related to the intersplat binding strength and hardness, but rather to the local splat properties. It has been shown that a porous structure although limiting the wear resistance of nickel aluminum coating in dry under high contact stress may be beneficial in quasi-lubricated sliding. High local splat hardness measured for the molybdenum carbide coatings appeared to be crucial for its enhanced wear resistance. The testing configuration ‘rotating ring on flat’ newly employed in this study has been proven to be a highly reproducible and efficient way of wear testing for thermal spray coatings.