Micro-scale abrasion testing is widely used to determine the abrasion resistance of thin film coatings; it is a simple technique that can easily be used as part of a quality control procedure, but it has got the disadvantage of not allowing an easy study of the wear mechanisms involved: it is difficult to estimate the load applied on each abrasive particles in the contact between the loaded ball and the specimen. The possibility of using progressive loading scratch testing, a method widely used to assess the adhesion of thin film coatings, to model the abrasive wear of coatings has been studied in the past; the use of multiple scratch tests to study the wear mechanisms corresponding to a single abrasion scratch event has also been studied in the case of bulk materials (ceramics and hard metals). Two coatings, deposited by Closed Field Unbalanced Magnetron Sputter Ion Plating (CFUBMSIP) on ASP23 powder metallurgy steel substrate are chosen to be representative of the use of protective coatings in industry: titanium nitride, which is widely used to prevent tool wear, and TCL Graphit-iC?, which is widely used as a wear resistant solid lubricant coating. The two coatings are first characterised by using a standard quality control procedure: their thickness is determined by the cap grinding method, their adhesion by progressive loading scratch. Then micro-scale abrasion tests performed with a slurry at a concentration which promotes grooving wear, and medium load multiple scratch tests performed with diamond indenters are completed; the results of these tests are analysed and compared to determine if there is any correlation between the two sets of results; the multiple scratch tests wear tracks are also observed to determine the wear mechanisms involved.
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