Abstract
An experimental study was performed to discover the tribological behaviors of pure tin and zinc coated 52100 bearing steel. Pure tin coatings ranging from 30 nm to 30,000 nm and pure zinc coatings ranging from 500 nm to 52,000 nm were produced by a thermal evaporation coating method. Experiments using a thrust ball bearing-typed rolling test-rig were performed for the investigations of the effect of coating thickness on the tribological rolling behavior. Results showed that the existence of optimum film thickness which revealed minimum rolling resistance was discovered for tin and zinc coating. The compatibility of coating material to iron showed no significant effect on the rolling resistance behavior. The hardness of coating material revealed significant influence to the rolling resistance behavior.
