Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 February 2011
The friction and wear of Ti-6Al-4V are found to be sharply reduced by carbon implantation followed by heat treatment. Optimum wear resistance is developed at 400° C, at which the microstructure of the implanted layer shows a dense array of TiC precipitates up to 60 nm in size. The implanted layer in this case is worn through in a few thousand cycles of the ball on disc test, but by implanting at two energies to achieve a deeper carbide layer, negligible wear was found even after 20,000 cycles. No wear improvement was found for nitrogen implantation.