ENVIRONMENTALLY BENIGN CERAMIC COMPOSITE COATINGS WITH ADVANCED TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES,

摘要

The reduction and replacement of grease and lubricants in automotive, marine and aerospace applications is an important issue emphasized by stringent environmental requirements. In addition, there is an increasing use and demand for lightweight materials like magnesium and aluminum due to their low density which is in most cases equivalent to energy savings. In this work ceramic coatings are applied on light metal substrates by thermal spraying to obtain high wear resistance of the surface since light metal surfaces show very poor tribological behavior. Subsequently, a thin polymer coating containing solid lubricants is applied to realize low friction coefficients. The coating systems presented show an excellent wear resistance and low friction coefficients in the range of 0.1 under dry sliding conditions. Thus the use of these coating systems will lead to a significant decrease of pollutants released to the service environment during operation.