This study discusses the effect of a duplex aging + nitriding process on the wear resistance of an aged double-phase titanium alloy, BT22. Nitriding was applied simultaneously with the heat treatment of the alloy, which is advantageous over the conventional heat and surface treatment methods applied to titanium alloys. According to the results, the thickness of the case depth of the nitrided samples was 40–50 μm. Moreover, nitrogen was uniformly dispersed in the substrate, which was indicated by the hardness tests. The average microhardness of the substrate material was 300 HV_0.01, while the hardness of the top layer was 1190 HV_0.01, which is an almost four-fold increase. The applied duplex treatment substantially affected the wear performance of the tested alloy. For the untreated alloy, the maximum coefficient of friction was 0.8, while in the surface-modified sample, the maximum fluctuations reached 0.6. The abrasive wear process was dominant in the nitrided samples, while delamination and adhesive wear were observed for the untreated specimens. The nitrided alloy exhibited double the wear resistance of the untreated samples. The proposed treatment does not require additional time or energy consumption, providing a substantial technological advantage over conventional methods. Though the alpha case reduces the mechanical performance of titanium, the nitriding of only the component sections intended to withstand friction will have a positive effect.

The aim of this work was to study the effect of anti-wear coatings on the selected frictional phenomena, i.a., frictional heating and tribofilm formation, of model tribological pairs. For this purpose, three popular metallic substrate materials were selected: AISI 316L and AISI 440B stainless steels, as well as Ti6Al4V two-phase titanium alloy. The substrates were tested in the dry sliding conditions in three states: uncoated, as well as titanium nitride (TiN) or diamond-like-carbon (DLC) coated. According to the results provided, under applied frictional conditions TiN coating, even if it is worn off the sample surface, contributes to excessive frictional heating of a tribological pair by altering the tribofilm formation. The analysis also showed that in some tribological pairs, rapid temperature alteration of a counter sample can be used to approximate the sliding distance after which the TiN coating becomes worn off. On the contrary, in all pairs tested, the DLC film became locally damaged, but it sustained its antifriction properties, contributing to low coefficients of friction (COFs) and the lowest frictional temperatures observed.

Despite the relatively numerous experimental studies, there are few published works on the topic of development of mathematical models that describe the hydrodynamic processes in gears. There is no generic analytical model that integrates all types of losses. The purpose of this work is to develop a modern generalised methodology for calculating the hydrodynamic power losses of high-speed gears. For each gear, partially or fully immersed into an oil bath, the power spent to overcome the hydromechanical resistance can be represented as the sum of the following: the Coriolis force moment arising from the radial movement of the oil in the tooth spaces of the rotating gear, the viscous friction forces moment on the periphery of the gear addendums in the oil bath and the viscous friction forces moment at the face of the gear in the oil bath. The hydrodynamic power losses due to the Coriolis force action, viscosity friction losses at the periphery of the gear and the viscosity friction at the face of the gear (both turbulent and laminar modes) were observed separately. From the mathematical simulation of the rotation processes when the gear is immersed into the oil bath, an analytical dependence was obtained. It allows predicting the influence of the geometrical parameters of the gearing on the hydrodynamic power losses. Analysis of the calculation results of the power losses due to the action of hydraulic resistance forces and results from experimental studies is provided for several gears with different hydromechanical parameters. The proposed method of calculating power loss due to hydromechanical resistance of the oil bath to the rotation of the gear gave results that were close to the experimental data. Acceptable coincidence of theoretical and experimental results allows recommending the received analytical dependencies for practical calculations of high-speed gears.