To keep up with the world’s progress in various fields, most of the industries must be

considerably involved in improving their machinery process and enhancing their productivity

by providing robust and long-life service machines. Among others, the applications olive oil

extraction, barite crushing industry are affected by the damage of relevant components after a

limited service time. The coating technique is one of the solutions that can prevent damage and

leads to enhanced lifetimes. In the present research work, an experimental and numerical study

were conducted in order to investigate the Brinell indentation behavior of the NiB and NiBTiO2

coatings deposited on non-heat-treated and heat-treated tool steel 40CrMnMoS8-6 (AISI

P 20). A wide range of indentations under different loads varying from 1 N until 2500 N was

applied experimentally and numerically using 2D axisymmetric model. The coating structure

and the indentation area at the loads F = 30 N, F = 140 N and F = 2500 N were investigated by

means of the scanning electron microscopy technique. First results revealed that the top surface

of the coating started to fail at a specific load range. The SEM photos showed that no cracks

are detected on the top surface of the coating until a normal load F = 140 N. Furthermore, at a

normal load of F = 2500 N several damage modes were detected at the circumference and the

center of the indentation, namely, shear step and circular crack followed by delamination of the

coating. NiB and NiB-TiO2 coating showed different damage modes. The comparison between

the experimental and the numerical indentation curves showed a good agreement. Furthermore,

the experimental indentation area and the Von Mises stress distribution obtained from the

numerical model are planned to be correlated in order to predict about the zones where the

coatings start to fail.

Keywords: Brinell indentation; damage mode; nanocomposite coating; numerical simulation