Design and characterisation of an advanced duplex system based on carbon S-phase case and GiC coatings for 316LVM austenitic stainless steel

Low temperature plasma carburising of austenitic stainless steels is attracting special attention because it can effectively improve their hardness, wear resistance and fatigue properties by the formation of interstitial supersaturated, super-hard and metastable S-phase. However, this S-phase layer tends to have a high friction coefficient between 0.5 and 0.7 under dry sliding conditions against WC ball. In this study, a new duplex surface system has been designed by combing chromium doped carbon-based GiC coating with S-phase to improve the tribological and load bearing capacity of 316LVM austenitic stainless steel. Laser confocal microscopy, SEM, XRD, XTEM, Micro-scratch and a pin-on-disc tester were employed to characterize the phase constitution, surface morphology, hardness, friction coefficient and load-bearing capacity of the single coated and duplex treated specimens. The results show that the new duplex surface system possesses a desirable combination of properties in terms of low friction (0.1–0.2), high wear resistance and high load bearing capacity.