A Numerical Study on the Mechanical Behaviour of Hard Coatings with Ductile Interlayers under Depth-Sensing Indentation

Abstract

In the present study, numerical simulations of nanohardness tests of titanium aluminium nitride (TiAlN) hard coatings with titanium and aluminium ductile interlayers were performed in order to determine the influence of interlayers of ductile metals on the overall mechanical properties of multilayer coatings. The investigation was designed to determine the role of ductile interlayers in altering the hardness value and the Young´s modulus of the multilayer coating as a whole, in comparison with a monolayer TiAlN hard coating, for the cases of composites with different numbers and thicknesses of interlayers.