Experimental Research and Micro-abrasive Mechanism of alpha-C : H Film Based on Ball Cratering

Measurement and evaluation of wearing resistance of films is one of the key problems for development and applications of hard film technology. Ball cratering is a well-established technique for the generation of micro-abrasion by means of a rotating steel ball (GCr15) continuously fed by an abrasive slurry containing diamond particle (diameter is 1.5 mu m). The concept of unit abrasive rate was put forward to evaluate abrasion resistance by measuring the diameter of the inner and outer of circularity scar. The abrasion resistance was measured for with Cr/alpha-C:H multilayer films prepared on the SKD11 stainless steel substrate by the technique of unbalanced magnetron sputter and anode ion beam deposition, rotate speed of ball of 200 r/min (0.26 m.s(-1)), normal pressure of 0.45 N, and the range of rotation turns of 50 similar to 800. To observe the surface topography of scar, style microscope, atomic force microscopy and scanning electron microscope were employed to identify TiN filth failure threshold by the reflected signal detection. By analyzing the experimental result, the critical value of abrasion resistance is determined as 350 cycles, and the unit abrasive rate of Cr/alpha-C: H film is 8.87 X 10(-9)(mm(4)-mm(-2)). It is shown that the removal mechanism could be attributed to micromachining and ploughing for film, which is under the influence of micro-abrasive.