Friction and Wear Behaviour of 42CrMo4 Steel Treated by Tenifer, Hard Chrome and Plasma Nitriding Technologies

Abstract

Concerning with effort to replace hard chrome plating cause of its ecological issues, this paper investigates the effects of surface technologies to wear resistance of ISO 42CrMo4 steel, which is popularly used in weapon production. After quenching and tempering, the experimental samples were treated by nitrocarburizing (tenifer), hard chrome plating and plasma nitriding technologies. Plasma nitriding was carried out with different gas mixture at 500ºC (plasma nitriding process) for 15h. The wear test based on principle “pin on disc” was performed to evaluate the coefficient of friction and the wear rate. The results were supplemented with surface hardness test and metall-ografical evaluation. The experiment results point out that nitrocarburizing and plasma nitriding improve wear resistance better than hard chrome plating.