International Journal of Engineering Research and Development e-ISSN: 2278-067X, p-ISSN: 2278-800X, www.ijerd.com Volume 10, Issue 12 (December 2014), PP.47-51 47 Effect of PVD Coating and Carburizing on Wear Characteristics of Low Carbon Steel S.Suresh Kumar 1 , N.Sathish 2 , J. Allen Jeffrey 3 , R.Mohan 4 1 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engg, Panimalar Polytechnic College, Chennai, India. 2 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engg, PMR Engineering College, Chennai, India. 3 Assistant Professor, Department of Mechanical Engg, Loyola Institute of Technology, Chennai, India. 4 PG Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Selvam College of Technology, Nammakal, India. Abstract:- Wear is a relative cyclic motion with small amplitude which occurs between two oscillating surfaces, depending upon the loading conditions, material properties and environment. Surface Engineering such as surface treatment, coating and surface modifications are employed to minimise the friction and improve wear resistance of steel. In this work the low carbon steel substrate is coated with Al 2 O 3 by using physical vapour deposition process and the other sampling material is heat treated by carburizing process. In the present study, the wear resistance of heat treated and coated steels were evaluated through the pin-on-disk using variable loads and wear is measured by the wear track width and wear graphs are shown for coated material and heat treated material. Finally, the comparison is concluded by observing the variations in wear characteristics between the two samples. Furthermore morphological study of wear is made for in-depth analysis. Keywords:- Carburizing, Microhardness, PVD Coating, Sliding Speed, Wear Graph, Wear Morphology I. INTRODUCTION Low carbon steel is the most common form of steel that are commonly used as a sheet metal forming in automobile bodies, rivets, screws, nails, gears, and other sliding contact purposes. By doing these operations the surfaces and subsurface, contacts and there is an interaction with hard particles such that the materials gets deformed or worn out on the upper surface. In order to minimise this consequences, the advanced surface engineering techniques are used. Coating and case hardening processes involve the application of a thin film of functional material to a substrate. As this work is concerned “heat treatment of low carbon steel” an experimental work which mostly deals with carburizing process. The traditional method of applying the carbon to the surfaces of the iron involved packing the iron in a mixture of ground bone or charcoal or a combination of leathers, hooves, salt and urine, all inside a well-sealed box. The resulting package is then heated to a high temperature, but still under the melting point of the iron and left at that temperature for a length of time. Furthermore, Physical vapor deposition (PVD) is used to deposit thin films by the condensation of a vaporized form of the desired film material onto various work piece surfaces for comparison. J.L. Mo, [1] was investigated the AlCrN coating exhibited higher hardness, but lower wear resistance as compared to the CrN coating. Battiston et al [2] was carried out the wear tests by sliding and abrasion whose pin and ball substrates were steels. The MOCVD coating processes were carried out 200°C under N 2 +O 2 atmosphere. For both sphere coated with Alumina and uncoated the wear rate were similar. Nitrided tool steels coated with Alumina showed superior wear resistance characteristics for cold working tooling. H.W.Strauss et al [3] was done the wear mechanisms and tribo/transfer film morphology were also studied. Studies revealed that ZnNi coatings had superior resistance to adhesive wear, higher Micro hardness when compared to cadmium coatings. Under unlubricated conditions friction coefficient of Zn–Ni coatings were found to decrease. Y. Sun, [4] have shown the low temperature plasma carburizing technique. The results show that the hard and corrosion resistant carburized layers are effective in preventing surface plastic deformation, eliminating adhesive and severe abrasive wear. Under dry sliding conditions, the entire carburized layers exhibit increased wear resistance. Shiv Kumar et al [5] the dry sliding wear behavior of a medium carbon steel against an alumina disk was studied in different heat treated conditions. The wear mechanism in the hardened and tempered steel at 30N and 40N loads involved an initial adhesive wear followed by an intermediate oxidative wear regime and reappearance of the adhesive wear regime on removal of oxide layer. The wear resistance at higher load (45N) became inferior to the forced air cooled steel due to lesser extent of work hardening. On the whole the papers highlighted show the wear resistance improvement at various processes on the steel or other materials, and also it indicates that the surface engineering techniques are well applicable for low carbon steel. From the past literatures, it is found that no work was done in PVD process and heat treatment