Wear Resistance Improvement of Titanium Bearings by Laser Gas Nitriding

摘要

The influence of gas nitriding on commercial pure titanium and Ti-6Al-4V (Ti64) alloy bearings by using a Q-sw laser on the wear loss during rolling contact fatigue is investigated. By optimizing the laser processing parameters, such as laser scanning speed, power and beam diameter thin TiN coats of 0.5 to 3 μm were produced. Non-coated and coated bearings made of pure Titanium and Ti-6Al-4V alloy were tested in equal conditions and it was found that the titanium nitride layers significantly improve the rolling contact fatigue performance of titanium components. For tests up to 10~6 cycles the wear loss of the coated samples was at least ten fold lower than that of the uncoated ones and for 7.76 × 10~6 cycles, the wear resistance improved almost 100-fold.