Substrate effect on the mechanical and tribological properties of arc plasma physical vapour deposition coatings

The measured coating hardness depends on the indentation depth reached in the ultra-microindentation tests. In this study the coating-substrate system has been characterized, analyzing the hardness variation from the coating to the substrate by different indentation depths, and modelling the experimental curve with a universally approved mathematical model. The CrN-steel system exhibits the best performance, in which the system hardness is close to the CrN coating hardness. The CrN-AMC system performs better than CrN-aluminium but worse than CrN-steel system.