Hardface Coating Systems for Wear and Corrosion Resistance

Metal alloys, such as titanium alloys and steels, are known to have a good combination of mechanical properties for many structural applications, but these metal alloys do not meet the wear and corrosion resistance requirements for some structural applications. Titanium alloys, for example, have many attractive properties such as high specific strength and stiffness, relatively low density, and excellent corrosion resistance, but have poor resistance to wear and oxidation at high temperatures. Conventional surfacing (such as nitriding), coating deposition (such as plasma spraying and sputtering), and plating have significant shortcomings that include potentially providing distorted substrates, deteriorated surfaces, and/or weak interfacial bonding.