Fabricating the Tribological Properties and Investigating of Ni3Al-MoS2 Composite Coating

Self-lubricant coatings are among the newly improved type of coatings to reduce the coefficient of friction and protect the substrate in various conditions. Magnetron sputtering is the best technology to fabricate coatings with good morphology. In this paper, the tribological properties of magnetron sputtered Ni3Al-MoS2 coating on 4340 steel are reported. For this purpose, five tablets of Ni3Al-30 wt.% MoS2 were prepared as the target material and were placed in a copper holder. At last, we have sputtered from the target using the best sputtering condition to get a good morphology and microstructure of the coating. The morphology and microstructure of the coatings were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The tribological properties of Ni3Al-MoS2 coating were investigated using a ball-on-disc tribometer at atmospheric conditions at room temperature. SEM was used to examine the morphology of the wear track after the ball-on-disc test. The Ni3Al-MoS2 composite coating showed lower frictions coefficient and higher wear resistance because of the hard Ni3Al matrix and soft MoS2 particles.