Química de superfície e atrito em nanoescala do aço-carbono AISI 1045 nitretado e pós-oxidado a plasma

Abstract

This work presents a quantitative chemical interpretation of friction for the most external layers of AISI 1045 steel previously nitrided and post-oxidized during 0, 1, 5, 10, 20 and 30 min. The characterization of morphology, microstructure, thickness and qualitative chemical composition of nitrided and post-oxidized layers was performed by scanning electronic microscopy (SEM) and glow discharge optical emission spectroscopy (GD-OES) analysis. The superficial crystalline structure was identified by grazing incident X-ray diffraction. The nitrided layer presented g’-Fe4N and e-Fe2-3N phases, while the postoxidized layer presented µ-Fe2O3 and Fe3O4 phases or just Fe3O4 phase (1 min postoxidized sample). The nanohardness was determined by low depth indentations (until 200 nm). The reduced elastic modulus, the surface roughness and the coefficient of friction (CoF) were determined by unidirectional sliding tests, using a MicroMaterials Nanotest- 600 nanoindenter. The deformation regime was identified through the plasticity index (Y). Nitrided only and 1 min post-oxidized samples showed constant results, considering the experimental error and the analyzed depth range (from 100 to 200 nm), for hardness, reduced elastic modulus, surface roughness and plasticity index, but different CoF. Therefore, the evolution of CoF as a function of the surface chemistry can be assessed without any influence from the change of the most important mechanical properties that determine the CoF. These experimental results can be explained using a phononic model relying on the characteristic vibrational frequency of the most external layers of the material. The model shows a reasonable agreement with the experimental results, with a difference of 3% between theoretical and practical results.