Abstract
Although the characteristics of PVD coatings in research and development papers are very promising, in the field of tribology the industrial application of these coating types is restricted to special market segments up to now: the deposition of hard coatings is state of the art on tools, whereas PVD coated machine components are quite rare.
This is caused by the coatings profile of properties, the various surroundings and the demands for application reliability. The last aspect is the main topic of this contribution. Reliability is especially important for machine components, because tools may fail after relative short life time compared to machine parts. Besides this tools and the corresponding production equipment are designed for fast tool replacement in contrast to other machines, which should work without standstill and with a minimum of maintenance.
Characteristics of coated systems must be guaranteed in practice theory and laboratory experiments have to show what is possible. On the one hand reproduction of the deposition process must be guaranteed to enter application fields with high demands for reliability, on the other hand characterization of coated systems must be standardized with admissible deviations for communication between coaters and users. These aspects are important for decisions concerning the use of coating substrate systems in tribology besides the topics of technical function.
The present investigation shows main reasons for deviations in results of PVD coatings.