Home | Research projects | Courses and modules | 3. a semester - University of Coimbra, Portugal

Course Overview

Module objectives

The course has the main objective of forming students in the most different variants of the surface modification technologies for improving wear and corrosion behaviour of materials. This course intends to supply the student with the ability to:

• Select the best procedure for surface modification in order to achieve the envisaged objectives considering not only technical problems but also processing costs.
• Achieve a basic knowledge level about surface modification technologies which allow the students to easily access future detailed information about each one.
• Be motivated for new techiques with potential to be developed worldwide.

Outline syllabus

• Introduction and motivation – why surface modification; advantages and drawbacks of these technologies; economical aspects
• Surface modification processes – with changes in the chemical composition; without changes in the chemical composition; coatings (by atomic deposition; by particles deposition; by diffusion; bulk coatings); selection of a coating technology; main steps in coatings deposition; main fields of coatings applications.
• Global perspective in the surface treatments for tribological applications – mechanical; thermal; by surface melting; thermochemical (cementation, nitruration and carbonitruration); ionic implantation; chemical treatments; welding; plasma spraying; CVD and PVD
• Sputtering – different sputtering modes; steps in the sputtering process; influence of deposition parameters on the coatings properties; reactive sputtering; residual stresses; adhesion.
• Growing and deposition of coatings for tribological applications – nucleation / structure; chemical composition; morphology.

Monitoring of student progress:

• Seminar or visit reports
• Laboratorial or field works
• Written examination

Partners

The key academic groups of TRIBOS consortium are leading and world renown in their own field of Tribology and Surface engineering. They are very complementary from point of view of surfaces, lubricants and interfaces, as well as engineering component design. Thus, their involvement in a single programme enables integration of the whole range of tribology sub-areas required for successful application solutions.