Sliding Wear Behavior of AlTiN PVD Coating on Titanium Alloy for Orthopedic Applications

The present study focused on to investigate the tribological behavior of AlTiN coating on titanium alloy-(Ti-6Al-4V) through physical vapor deposition (PVD) for orthopedic applications. The sliding wear properties of coated samples were performed by pin on disc apparatus with ambient temperature. EN 31 alloy steel was chosen for counter materials as a pin with 6 mm diameter. RSM based design of experiments are carried out with three factors with three levels such as normal forces (15, 30 and 45 N); sliding speeds (0.5, 1 and 1.5 m/s); and sliding distance (500, 1000 and 1500 m). The test was conducted at twenty different experimental combinations at randomly. The value of the wear mass loss was considered as response parameter. The minimal wear mass loss was found at applied load 15 N, sliding speed 0.5 m/s and sliding distance 500 m.