Effect of contact pressure on wear resistance of AISI H13 tool steels with chromium nitride and hard chromium coatings

The effect of contact pressure on the wear behavior of AISI H13 tool steels with chromium nitride and hard chromium coatings has been investigated. Hard chromium and chromium nitride coatings were applied to a hardened and tempered AISI H13 tool steel by using electroplating and cathodic arc plasma deposition, respectively. The microhardness of the applied hard chromium and the chromium nitride coatings and the base steel was found to be 890, 2150 and 510 HV0.01, respectively. When subjected to a lighter load of 3.3 MPa, both H-Cr and CrN coatings provided excellent wear resistance better than that of the uncoated H13 steel. When the applied contact pressure is increased to 11 MPa, the thick H-Cr coating exhibits a satisfactory long-term wear resistance but the thin CrN coating can only provide a short-term protection against the heavy contact pressure wearing.