Deposition of titanium silicide on stainless steel AISI 304 surface

Introduction. Metal-ceramic coatings based on titanium silicide are promising for protecting stainless steel AISI 304 from wear, corrosion and high-temperature oxidation. Purpose of the work: to investigate the stainless steel AISI 304 surface layer structure after electrospark deposition in a mixture of titanium granules with silicon powder, and to study oxidation resistance, corrosion resistance and tribotechnical properties of the obtained coatings. Research methodology. Fe-Ti-Si coatings on the stainless steel AISI 304 samples were obtained by electrospark machining with a non-localized electrode consisting of titanium granules and 2.6-6 vol.% mixture of titanium and crystalline silicon powders. Results and discussion: it is shown that a stable positive gain of the cathode is observed when the proportion of silicon in the powder mixture does not exceed 32 vol.%. The phase composition of the coatings includes: a solid solution of chromium in iron, titanium silicide Ti5Si3, titanium and silicon, which is confirmed by the energy dispersion analysis data. The microhardness of Fe-Ti-Si coatings ranges from 10.05 to 12.86 GPa, which is 5-6 times higher than that of uncoated steel AISI 304. The coefficient of friction of the coatings is about 20% lower compared to steel AISI 304 and hovers around 0.71-0.73. Wear tests in dry sliding mode show that Fe-Ti-Si coatings can increase the wear resistance of steel AISI 304 up to 6 times. The oxidation resistance of the coatings at a temperature of 900 ̊С is 7-12 times higher as compared to steel AISI 304. The conducted studies have shown that new electrospark Fe-Ti-Si coatings can increase corrosion resistance, oxidation resistance, microhardness, as well as reduce the coefficient of friction and wear rate of the stainless steel AISI 304 surface.