Study of crack resistance of TiAlN coatings by scratch testing

Scratch tests were performed to study failure mechanisms in TiAlN coatings deposited on substrates from steel 12Cr18Ni9Ti. It is shown that coating failure begins with crack generation at the apices of pile-ups formed along the scratch due to plastic ploughing of the substrate material. With further increase in indentation load the failure process is governed by the competition between tensile stresses behind the indenter arising due to friction force and stresses at the contact area periphery due to coating bending under normal load. Substrate pretreatment by Ti ion beams is shown to simultaneously increase the hardness and crack resistance of TiAlN coatings.