Wear of nanostructured composite tool coatings

The lifetime of forming tools can be increased by surface functionalization using novel, nanostructured coatings. A special centre of focus of this is the tribological requirements on the coating. Within the framework of the BMBF project, the friction and wear behaviours of 3 newly developed nanostructured composite tool coatings: VAIN, VAlN/VCAlN and VAlN/VCAlN with a carbon-enriched top layer, were examined and compared to each other. Because a conventional wear test would have required a large number of tests (⪢10,000) with a concomitantly high consumption of sheet metal, the examinations were run in a model trial at an increased surface pressure of 150 MPa, to accelerate the wear of the tool. Wear analysis was carried out by considering the changes in topography and hardness of the tool surface.