Impact of Ag on the microstructure and tribological behaviors of adaptive ZrMoN–Ag composite lubricating films

Abstract

Solid lubricating films have great advantages in extreme operating conditions. In this research, silver (Ag) was doped into the ZrMoN composite film to develop a composite polyphase structure with enhanced mechanical and tribological properties. A series of ZrMoN–Ag composite films with different Ag content were prepared. The results show that the composition phases of the composite films are fcc-Mo2N、fcc-ZrN, and nano-crystalline fcc-Ag was dispersed in the films. The ZrMoN–Ag composite films exhibited excellent mechanical properties with a hardness of 27.6 GPa and elastic modulus of 286.8 GPa. In addition, the ZrMoN–Ag composite film with Ag content of 11.88 at.% possessed the advantage of low friction coefficient in a wide temperature range, attributing mainly to the synergetic effect of Ag phase and friction oxidation products. This work provides a promising solution for designing solid self-lubrication composite in wide temperature domain.

Keywords

• Nanocomposites
• Microstructures
• Mechanical properties
• Wear