2011 STLE Annual Meeting & Exhibition

May 15-19, 2011

Study of Sliding Wear Behavior of INCONEL718 Coatings on Mild Steel

1. Professor, Mechanical Engineering, PESIT, BSK III stage, 100 Feet ring Road, Bangalore, INDIA–5600 85

2. Asst. Professor, SBM Jain college of Engg. Jain University, Ramanagara Dist., Karnataka, INDIA and Research Scholar, JNTU, Hyderabad

3. Lecturer, Mechanical Engineering, PESIT, BSK III stage, 100 Feet ring Road, Bangalore, INDIA–5600 85

INTRODUCTION

Due to its application to a wide spectrum of materials, atmospheric plasma spraying has become one of the most
widely used techniques of surface treatment. The wear of plasma sprayed coatings is characterized by plastic
deformation, cracks, pits, debris, grooves, scratches and tracks [1, 2, 3]. Mild steel finds wide applications in variety
of fields of due to its good mechanical strength but its wear resistance and corrosion resistance are poor. Till date,
very limited work has been reported in the literature on INCONEL 718 as coatings. The present work is aimed at
studying the friction and wear behavior of INCONEL718 coatings atmospheric plasma sprayed on mild steel
substrate.

EXPERIMENTAL DETAILS

Materials

In the present study, mild steel is used as substrate material and INCONEL718 of standard nominal composition is
used as the coating material. INCONEL718 is a Nickel Chromium alloy consisting of Nickel, Chromium, Niobium,
Titanium, Tantalum, Molybdenum, Iron and cobalt in significant quantities and carbon, manganese, copper, boron,
Sulfur, silicon, aluminum and phosphorous in smaller quantities. INCONEL718 has excellent wear and corrosion
resistance coupled with high strength at ambient temperature. This alloy finds variety of applications in gas
turbines, jet engines, steam generators, fission and fusion reactor structures.

Procedure of Coating

Air Plasma Spray (APS) coating was carried out using SG-100 torch mounted on a computer controlled KUGA robot
at M/S Metallizing Equipment Company Pvt. Ltd. Jodhpur, India. INCONEL718 alloy powder was plasma sprayed on
mild steel substrate. Before coating, the mild steel substrate was grit blasted using 20 mesh size alumina particles.
During the coating process, hydrogen and argon gases were used as inert gases. A constant standoff distance of 5”,
a voltage of 40 volts, a current of 800 amps, 40 lpm and 0.4 lpm of flow rate of Argon gas and hydorogen gas
respectively, 32 KW power, 100 gm/min of flow rate of Inconel 718 powder were the plasma spray parameters
adopted in the present work to develop coatings of thicknesses 200 µm. The critical plasma-spray parameter
(CPSP) in the present study was 800 [4].

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Hardness Testing

Vickers’s hardness tester was used to measure the micro hardness and a load of 50 g was applied for 10 seconds.
The test was conducted at three different locations and the average hardness value was calculated.

Wear Testing

The wear specimen (pin) of diameter 10 mm and height 20 mm were subjected to wear tests on Ducom, Bangalore
make computerized pin-on-disc wear testing machine against the counter surface of high carbon EN31 steel having
a hardness of HRC60. The wear of the specimen was studied as a function of the applied load and speed.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

Micro-hardness

The micro hardness of coated and uncoated mild steel specimen was found to be 318 VHN and 210 VHN
respectively. The result clearly shows 51.43% increase in hardness of mild steel after coating which may be
reasoned to the lamellar structure of the coating resulting in continuous splat formation with less porosity.
Further, this increase in hardness can be attributed to the presence of molybdenum, chromium and titanium.

SEM and XRD results

INCONEL718
Coating

Mild steel
Substrate
Splats

(a) Coating thickness (b) Splats (c) XRD of INCONEL718 coating

Figures 1(a) and (b) show the SEM photographs of as coated mild steel showing coating thickness and splats.
Figure 1(a) shows the section across the coating indicating the coating thickness to be about 200 microns and the
lamellar structure of the coatings can be clearly seen through the section. From Figure 1(b), it and can be observed
that the coating has formed into splats due to plasma spraying. Moreover, these splats are continuous and hence
porosity is less. Figure 1 (c) shows the XRD of Inconel 718 coatings which indicates the formation of stable oxides
such as Cr2O3, Fe2O3 along with some spinel oxides such as NiCr2O4 and NiCo2O4 which form on solidifying splat
surfaces during growth of the coating. Reduction in coefficient of friction may be attributed to the presence of
Chromium Oxide. Further, the presence of inter metallic precipitates namely gamma prime Ni3Al which results in
improved surface hardness coupled with increased toughness of the coatings. Further, it is evident from the SEM
that there exist minimum micro porosities on the coated samples coupled with uniform and dense deposition of
Inconel-718. These features of coating do contribute to further improvement in micro-hardness and wear
resistance [5].

Tribological properties

Figure 5 (a) and (b) show the variation of coefficient of friction and wear rate respectively for uncoated and coated

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mild steel as a function of load after a sliding time of 30 minutes. The coefficient of friction is reduced with
increase in load for both uncoated and coated specimen. The wear rate decreases with increase in load for both
uncoated and coated specimen. The amount of wear rate is less in coated specimen compared to the uncoated
specimen which can be attributed to the presence of hard substances such as Chromium, Titanium and
molybdenum in the coating on mild steel surface. Figure 5(c) and (d) show the variation coefficient of friction and
wear rate respectively for uncoated and coated mild steel as a function of speed after a sliding time of 30 minutes.
With increase in speed, coefficient of friction increases while wear rate decreases. Reduction of wear rate of
coated specimen as compared to the uncoated specimen may be attributed to increase in the hardness of the
surface after coating.

(a) COF V/s Load (b) Wear Rate V/s Load (c) COF V/s Speed (d) Wear rate V/s Speed

Figure 5 Effect of Load at 400 rpm and speed at 50 N load

CONCLUSIONS

Based on the tests carried out to study the effect of wear of Inconel 718 coated on mild steel, the
following conclusions have been drawn.

1. Plasma spraying process produced lamellar coatings and the molten droplets of coating formed into splats.
2. There is a considerable increase in the hardness of the surface due to coating which increased the wear
resistance of the mild steel surface.
3. Increase in load resulted in increase of coefficient of friction and decrease of wear rate.
4. Increase in speed resulted in increase of coefficient of friction and decrease of wear rate. Decrease in wear
rate could be attributed to the presence of Chromium, molybdenum and Titanium in the coating.
5. Comparing the uncoated and coated specimen, it can be concluded that coating increases the wear resistance
of the substrate thereby reducing wear due to increased surface hardness.
REFERENCES
1. A. Martın, J. Rodrıguez , J.E. Fernández , R. Vijande, “Sliding wear behaviour of plasma sprayed WC-NiCrBSi
coatings at different temperatures”, Wear 251 (2001) 1017–1022
2. B. Uyulgan, H. Cetinel, I. Ozdemir, C. Tekmen, S.C. Okumus, E. Celik, “Friction and wear properties of Mo
coatings on cast-iron substrates”, Surface and Coatings Technology 174 –175 (2003) 1082–1088
3. J. H. Ouyang, S. Sasaki, K. Umeda, “The friction and wear characteristics of plasma-sprayed ZrO2-Cr2O3-CaF2
from room temperature to 800±C”, Journal Of Materials Science, 36 (2001) 547– 555
4. Eun Pil Song , Jeehoon Ahn , Sunghak Lee , Nack J. Kim, “Microstructure and wear resistance of nanostructured
Al2O3–8wt.%TiO2 coatings plasma-sprayed with nanopowders”, Surface & Coatings Technology 201 (2006)
1309–1315
5. C.S. Ramesh; Devaraj D S, Keshavamurthy R, “Slurry erosive wear behavior of Thermally Sprayed Inconel-718
coatings by APS process”, Wear of Materials 2011 Special Issue
KEYWORDS
List Keywords provided in original abstract