Understanding corrosion and tribology behaviors of VN and VCN coatings in seawater

Abstract

VN and VCN coatings were prepared using multi-arc ion plating technique on 316L stainless steel and single silicon substrates. Microstructures, mechanical performances, corrosion behaviors and tribology properties of VN and VCN coatings in the atmosphere, distilled water and seawater were contrastively tested. It was confirmed that the VCN coating had a typical nanocystallite/amorphous structure. Moreover, the hardness increased from 30.5 to 36.5 GPa and the corrosion current density decreased from 2.16 × 10−6 to 0.82 × 10−6 A cm−2 after carbon was doped into the VN coating. Compared with the VN coating, the VCN coating had the lowest friction coefficient of 0.26 and wear rate of 0.68 × 10−6 mm3 Nm−1 in seawater, which could be ascribed to the lubrication of graphitization transfer film and improvement of the comprehensive performance.