Effects of Si content on Tribo-corrosion behavior of Cr1-xSixN coatings prepared via magnetron sputtering

With increase of Si content, the microstructure of Cr1-xSixN coating undergoes noticeable changes from a typical columnar morphology through column with less inter-columnar voids to column-free dense amorphous structure, the corrosion resistance of Cr1-xSixN coatings increase while the wear resistance increase first and then decrease. The Cr0.58Si0.42N coating shows the lowest wear rate of 2.9 × 10−16 m3/N m. Though Cr0.58Si0.42N exhibited best wear resistance in tribological test and good corrosion resistance in corrosion test, the tribo-corrosion resistance was not significantly improved. The trio-corrosion resistance is associated with corrosion resistance, wear resistance and embrittlement resistance. More attention should be paid to tribochemical property which caused increased embrittlement under salt water environment.194