Abstract

Wear, is one of the most important failure type which reduces the service lifetime and increases the maintenance cost of machines. In addition, wear is directly related with surface properties and friction characteristics. So, researchers focus on various surface treatments to reduce the wear and its cost. Plasma nitriding is one of surface treatment which forms a few hundred micron diffusion zone and a surface inter-metallic phases with moderate surface hardness. PVD coating is another method which ensures ultra-hard and a few micron surface layers. In the present study, AISI H13 hot work tool steel substrate was surface treated with various methods, such as plasma nitriding, PVD coating and duplex treatment. Effects of the treatments on the surface roughness, hardness were investigated. Additionally, microstructural analysis was performed to present the effect of treatments on the surface microstructures. Furthermore, friction characteristics were investigated using ball on disk testing machine and wear tracks were discussed using optical microscopy.