19aF-03

International Tribology Conference, TOKYO 2015

September 16th 20th, 2015, Tokyo, Japan

Dry Friction and Wear Behavior of

Atmospheric Plasma Sprayed SiC Coating
Fahmi Mubarok* and Nuria Espallargas
Department of Engineering Design and Materials,
Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
Richard Birkelands vei 2B, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
*corresponding author: fahmi.mubarok@ntnu.no

Atmospheric plasma sprayed SiC coating deposited using a new patented powder feedstock has been assessed
for its dry friction and wear performance against SiC ball (self-mated contact) under different applied load to
investigate the influence of maximum contact pressure (Cpmax). The highest coefficient of friction (CoF) of 0.60
was recorded during sliding at the highest Cpmax of 2.5 GPa. The coating experience abrasive wear and tribooxidation reaction under sliding contact. The tribo-oxidation reaction generate discontinuous layer of silicon
oxide which act as a solid lubricant, thus providing lower CoF and effectively limiting the wear in Cp max 1.5
GPa and 2.0 GPa. However, these layers are broken down in the highest Cp max and several order magnitude of
wear is detected in this testing pair as compared to the other two testing pairs.
Keywords: SiC coating, dry friction, wear, maximum contact pressure
slpm and 47.6 kW power. The deposited SiC coating
were polished with 4000 grade diamond pad and an
average surface roughness (Ra) of 0.25 0.06 m was
measured on the polished surface.
The tribological tests were performed using a
reciprocating pin-on-disk tribometer (ResMat, Montreal,
Canada) with SiC balls (4.76 mm diameter) as a
counterpart. The tests were performed at unlubricated
condition with applied loads of 2.5, 6.0 and 12.0 N
generating maximum contact pressures (Cpmax) of 1.5,
2.0 and 2.5 GPa, respectively. The tests were
accomplished with a stroke length of 5 mm at 1 Hz
frequency achieving 200 meter distance within 20000
cycles and relative humidity of 20%. The wear was
measured as volume loss (V) on the SiC coating by
calculating the average of cross-sectional area (A)
multiply by the sliding distance (L), V=A x L.

1. Overview
Silicon carbide (SiC) coatings have been extensively
used for wear applications in corrosive environments or
in high temperature where liquid lubrication use is
limited. Nowadays, most of the available SiC coatings in
the market are delivered through CVD or PVD vacuum
processes. This limits their application for coating largescale components [1-2]. Wear resistant coatings applied
for rolling or sliding such as WC, TiC and Cr3C2 are
delivered onto large-scale components using thermal
spraying methods [3-4]. However, thermally sprayed SiC
coating is hardly available in the market since this
material is considered difficult to spray due to its
decomposition issues at 25002600oC under atmospheric
process.
In our previous studies, the deposition of SiC coating
was shown to be possible with the atmospheric plasma
spraying (APS) system by modifying the feedstock [5].
In the present work, the unlubricated sliding behavior of
this coating is assessed under different load application
to study the influence of different maximum contact
pressures on their friction and wear characteristics.

3. Results and Discussion

APS SiC coating of around 260 micron in thickness
with good adhesion to the substrate was produced as
shown in Figure 1. The XRD of the coatings identify
similar SiC peaks profiles as those detected in the powder
feedstock. This indicates that the YAG films are able to
protect SiC particles from decomposition while
delivering a matrix phase that bonds the SiC particles
forming a coating. Unfortunately, the coating contains
numerous random distributed macro-pores mostly
located in between lamellae and micro-pores due to
entrapped gases. Around 5% porosity was calculated
from the cross-sectional view of the coating.
Nevertheless, the SiC coating showed high hardness of

2. Experimental details
The deposition of SiC coting was made by APS
system utilizing modified SiC powder feedstock. The SiC
powders were treated using co-precipitation technique to
deliver 30wt% of yttrium aluminum garnet (YAG,
Y3Al5O12) films onto SiC powders. The detail processes
are available elsewhere [6]. The powders feedstock of
25-45 micron in size is injected into Oerlikon Metco F4MB system with argon/hydrogen gas supply of 40/15

637

Japanese Society of Tribologists 2015

19aF-03

International Tribology Conference, TOKYO 2015

September 16th 20th, 2015, Tokyo, Japan

Figure 1. Cross sectional view of APS-SiC coating.

Figure 3. Silica transfer film formed due to sliding

action

1107 272 HV0.05 measured on their dense regions.

Examples of the dry friction under different applied
maximum contact pressure is shown in Figure 2. The
lowest coefficient of friction (CoF) was achieved during
lowest applied Cpmax condition giving a stable value that
slightly fluctuated at 0.35 after short initial running in
period. The volume loss was undetected by the confocal
microscope since the wear depth value was within the
range of the coating average surface roughness.
Increasing the Cpmax to 2.0 GPa resulted in the
increase of CoF. Short initial running in period followed
by a more or less stationary period to a stable value of
around 0.40 throughout the test was recorded.
Approximately 4.99 x 10-3 mm3 volume loss was
measured in the wear track.
The sliding test in the highest Cpmax of 2.5 GPa
showed gradual increase of the CoF value that fluctuated
from 0.50 to 0.60 after reaching 4000 cycles until the end
of the test. The high CoF was detected in the running in
period before it finally dropped to the lowest value of
0.40 and gradually rose to around 0.50 within about 3500
cycles. The coating experienced severe abrasion wear
under this condition giving a volume loss of
approximately 146 x 10-3 mm3, far higher than the other
tests.
During unlubricated sliding, the surface experience
abrasive wear and tribo-oxidation reaction. The tribooxidation reaction generate discontinuous layers of silica
tribo-films. This film are formed in both surface and act

as solid lubricant and contribute to lower the CoF value.

Their influence is notable in Cpmax 1.5 GPa and 2.0 GPa
application. Figure 3 shows the existence of these tribolayers. However, during the application of highest Cp max
of 2.5 GPa, this film is apparently destroyed and thus
abrasive wear is dominating the sliding contact causing
both high CoF and very high wear.
4. Conclusion
The unlubricated tribological testing under different
Cpmax are characterized by abrasive wear and tribooxidation reaction. The effect of tribo-oxidation reaction
is recognized in the Cp max 1.5 GPa and 2.0 GPa where
their wear is very low. However, during the highest Cpmax
application, the abrasive wear is found to be dominating
the sliding contact as the tribo-film is constantly
destroyed. This had result in both high CoF and very high
wear.
5. References
[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

Figure 2. CoF of SiC coatings under different loads

638

Zaytouni, M and Rivire, J. P., Wear reduction of

TA6V produced by SiC coatings deposited by
dynamic ion mixing, Wear, 197, 12, 1996, 5662.
Costa, A. K. and Camarago, S. S., Amorphous SiC
coatings for WC cutting tools, Surf. Coatings
Technol., 163164, 2003, 176180.
Stewart, S. and Ahmed, R., Rolling contact fatigue of
surface coatings - a review, Wear, 253, 2002, 1132
1144.
Houdkov, S., Zahlka, F., Kaparov, M., and
Berger, L. M., Comparative study of thermally
sprayed coatings under different types of wear
conditions for hard chromium replacement, Tribol.
Lett., 43, 2, 2011, 139154.
Mubarok, F., Thermally Sprayed Silicon Carbide
Coating, PhD thesis, Norwegian Univeristy of
Science and Technology, 2014.
Mubarok, F. and Espallargas, N., Synthesis of
thermal spray grade silicon carbide feedstock powder
for plasma spray deposition, in International Thermal
Spray Conference 2015, Long Beach, California,
2015.