Relationship between residual stress and tribocorrosion behavior of high quality DLC coatings prepared by FCVA with HVP technology.

Diamond-like carbon coatings can be used to protect precision components in extreme marine environments from the coupling effects of tribocorrosion. However, the thickness of the diamond-like carbon coating is limited by residual stress. In this paper, a method combining filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition and high-voltage pulsed technology is used to controllably release residual stresses to deposit high-quality thick diamond-like carbon coatings and to study their tribocorrosion mechanism and performance in extreme environments. The results showed that periodic energetic particles could disrupt the local carbon network structure with increasing frequency, thereby reducing the residual stress to 0.787 GPa in a diamond-like carbon coating of about 5 μm, and the release of residual stress prevented the formation of corrosion channels during corrosion of the diamond-like carbon coating. The high-quality diamond-like carbon coating was tested in a tribocorrosion test at 5 N and 10 N loads. The excellent corrosion resistance reduces the coupling effect of tribocorrosion on the coating. The high content of graphite-like structures inhibits the formation of microcracks, reducing the degree of wear of the diamond-like carbon coating in 3.5 wt% NaCl solution. The combination of high-voltage pulsed technology and filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition can break through the limitation of residual stress on the thickness of diamond-like carbon coatings, which provides meaningful guidance for the application of thick diamond-like carbon coatings for surface protection of precision devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]