Investigation of structural and tribological properties of duplex surface treated pure titanium

Commercial pure titanium (CP-Ti) is used in many engineering fields because of its superior properties such as excellent corrosion resistance, high strength/weight ratio, and biocompatibility. However, it is not available at the desired rate, since the CP-Ti has poor wear resistance. For this reason, many surface treatments have been applied to improve the poor tribological properties of the CP-Ti. In this study, duplex surface treatments, which are the combination of treatments of electroless Ni-B coating and plasma nitriding, were applied on the surfaces of the CP-Ti. Structural properties of the different surfaces of the treated materials were investigated using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). Microhardness measurements were made for the determination of mechanical properties and the pin-on-disk wear tests were made to determine the tribological properties. It was observed that poor wear resistance of the CP-Ti was improved with duplex surface treatments. The results showed that surface hardness, friction coefficient, and surface roughness of coated samples were better than of uncoated CP-Ti.