[...]... doi:10.2495/SECM090011 4 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX improve the structural and mechanical properties of pure amorphous phases [2] However, surface smoothness of such films becomes a crucial property for developing frictionless protective coatings If the sliding surfaces are very rough, a high level of mechanical interlocking between surface asperities leads to high friction and wear losses (especially... www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) doi:10.2495/SECM090021 14 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX 1 Introduction Carburizing and carbonitriding have become important and widely used processes for developing hard cases at the surface of steel parts by modifying the chemical composition of the surface with hardening species such as carbon and nitrogen [1] Carbonitriding is generally regarded as a modified... left blank Section 1 Surface treatments This page intentionally left blank Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX 3 Dynamic smoothening and tribological properties of pulsed-DC sputtered DLC based nanocomposite films K P Shaha, Y T Pei, C Q Chen & J Th M De Hosson Department of Applied Physics, The Netherlands Materials Innovation Institute (M2i), University of Groningen, The Netherlands Abstract Interface... ID, gap width and surface flatness These results were then used to compare both size (OD, ID, gap) and shape (flatness) distortion for the different heat treatment processes WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) 16 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX 1-NC 2-NC 3-NC 4-NC 5-NC Figure 1: Navy C-ring’s geometry and distortion... stage of the growth at 180 min, the surface becomes smoother and the peak-to-valley distance becomes smaller It is believed that the intensive and continuous impingement with high flux and high WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) 8 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX energy ions cause impact induced downhill flow of adatoms... 1743-3533 (on-line) Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX 11 achieved with pulse-DC sputtering at higher frequency The ion flux and ion energy bombarding at the growing interface plays crucial role in achieving the smoothening effect and hence column-free microstructure At low pulse frequencies, the film growth is dominated by geometrical shadowing effect while at high frequency surface diffusion... sputtering with pulse frequency: (b) 200 kHz and (c) 350 kHz The RMS roughness (R) is noted WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX Figure 4: 9 Fracture cross section of TiC/a-C:H films deposited by pulsed-DC reactive sputtering of pulse frequency: (a) 200 kHz and (b) 350 kHz down as the hills merge... nitrocarburizing and nitrogen cooling was performed at different heat treatment temperatures and times as well as a carbonitriding using current production practice for 1010 steel automotive components [11] Navy C-ring specimens with varying thicknesses were used to WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX. .. films as a function of growth time The interlayer exhibits a grainy surface morphology (Fig 1a) with root mean square (RMS) roughness of 0.29 ± 0.01 nm Fig 1b shows the surface morphology of WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) 6 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX the TiC/a-C nanocomposite film grown (on the smooth interlayer)... comparison of the different C-ring series reveals that the OD dimensions of 1-NC and 5-NC series varied over a wider range from sample to sample and with temperature: this was WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences, Vol 62, © 2009 WIT Press www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3533 (on-line) 18 Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX particularly true for the thinnest samples (5-NC series) The 565°C / 5 hours . alt="" Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX WITeLibrary Home of the Transactions of the Wessex Institute. Papers presented at Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics: Computational Methods and Experiments. Engineering Sciences NINTH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SURFACE EFFECTS AND CONTACT MECHANICS: COMPUTATIONAL METHODS AND EXPERIMENTS CONTACT AND SURFACE 2009 P. Gerity M. Hadfield T. Hattori Y. Katz Y Germany Surface Effects and Contact Mechanics IX Editors: J.T.M. De Hosson University of Groningen, The Netherlands C.A. Brebbia Wessex Institute of Technology, UK Computational Methods and Experiments Published