A growing demand for highly efficient machining of materials such as stainless steel, titanium alloy and nickel-base alloy, which are difficult-to-machine has been in prime focus since last decade. In the meantime, dry machining has both environmental and economic benefits, since the coolant or lubricant smoke can be harmful to humans, and its maintenance cost is also considerably high. A hard coating, especially one which is self-lubricating would be beneficial to address such problems. Some Transition Metal Nitride based coatings have proved to possess great potential for enhancing the tribological properties of hard coatings, since they are capable of forming lubricious oxides commonly known as Magne´li phases at elevated temperatures. Several hard coatings were designed to understand the durability in extreme harsh environments during dry cutting operations. The present work aims to synthesis W-V-N alloy coatings using DC magnetron sputtering method at various operating parameters. The findings indicate that all W-V-N coatings, regardless of vanadium content, exhibit a face-centered cubic structure and form a solid solution of W-V-N as depicted from XRD spectra. Among the coatings studied, W0.68V0.32N displays the highest hardness (14.25 GPa) and Young's modulus (257.53 GPa), as well as excellent wear resistance. W0.68V0.32N coating exhibits a lower specific wear rate in comparison to other synthesized coating at ambient (300K) and elevated temperature (573K). The W-V-N coating’s ability to reduce friction and wear combined with their improved mechanical properties, positions them as promising candidates for solid lubricating coatings in tribological applications.

Keywords: Solid Self-lubricating; Dry Machining; Transition Metal Nitride; Magnetron Sputtering; Tribological Application.