Improvement in Wear Resistance of Grade 37 Titanium by Microwave Plasma Oxy-Carburizing

Grade 37 titanium is widely used in racing applications thanks to its oxidation resistance up 650 °C, but it suffers from poor wear and fretting resistance, especially at high temperature. In this paper, different surface modification techniques, namely, carburizing, coating by PVD-ZrO2 a novel microwave plasma oxy-carburizing treatment, are investigated terms of hardness, scratch compared the untreated substrate. Numerical simulation allowed optimization design source, which operated 2.45 GHz atmospheric pressure. The proposed treatment localized can serve improve tribological properties selected regions sample; titanium, oxy-carburized layer presents decrease rate 450 °C against alumina 54% an increase hardness more than three times.