Key features of plastic deformation and erosive wear craters that develop in the surface layer of austenitic and sorbite structure steels during the incubation period of the droplet-impingement erosion have been studied. Using electron microscopy, nanoindentation, and simulation, it has been shown that the degradation of the surface at the initial erosion stages is caused by fatigue processes that develop under hydrodynamic cavitation. Based on Goodman’s fatigue model, the conditions for the safe operation of the material under the impact of droplet impingements are defined.

In this paper, we study vacuum ion-plasma TiAlN coatings with various structure morphology (single-layer and multi-layer with various layer thicknesses) th

Formation of the erosive wear of austenitic steel under multicycle droplet-impingement impact has been studied. It has been shown that, with an existing relief on the steel surface, the bubble cavitation becomes the predominant wear factor under droplet-impingement erosion. The conditions for development of the bubble cavitation as well as its mechanisms and the regularities of its influence on the erosive destruction of the surface layer have been investigated.

The paper describes and attempts to explain the stages of initiation and development of fatigue wear of TiAlSi system nanostructured coatings under contact cyclic loads. The thickness of the coatings obtained by vacuum ion-plasma deposition was 8–10 μm. The electron microscopic tests were a powerful tool to analyze both coating structure and destruction processes. The tests, as well as the mechanisms and methods for assessing the process of coating fatigue degradation of coatings can be successfully expanded to a wide variety of materials.