Estudio de la influencia del espesor en el valor de los esfuerzos residuales y las propiedades tribologicas de recubrimientos duros de TiZrN depositadas por deposicion fisica de vapor.

It is well known that the level of coating residual stresses depends on processing parameters such as substrate temperature, substrate bias, operating pressure, coating thickness and deposition rate. In general, Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) processes result in compressive stresses on the order of a few GPa, such values may affect the system behavior in a given application. In particular, data in literature indicate that compressive residual stresses can increase the wear resistance of coated systems. However, higher compressive stresses also increase the possibility of film detachment during system use in tribological applications. The aim of this work is to study the effect of film thickness on both the residual stress level and the tribological properties of TiZrN coatings grown by Physical Vapor Deposition. Coatings with different thickness will be deposited on stainless steel substrates by means of pulsed cathodic arc processing. The residual stresses will be determined with the grazing incidence x-ray diffraction method (GIXRD). The tribological properties will be measured by using a ball on disc tribometer.