Surface and Coatings Technology, 50 (1991) 25—32 25

Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing*

S. J. Bull
AEA Industrial Technology, Ha,well Laboratory, Oxfordshire, OX11 ORA (UK)

(Received March 12, 1991; accepted July 10, 1991)

Abstract

The scratch test has been used to assess coating adhesion for some time. In this test, a diamond indenter is
drawn across the coated surface under an increasing load (either stepwise or continuous) until at some load,
termed the critical load L~,a well-defined failure event occurs; if this failure event represents the loss of
coating—substrate adhesion then the critical load can be used as a qualitative measure of coating—substrate
adhesion. However, it is well known that a range of possible failure modes can occur and only some of these
are dependent on adhesion; other failure modes which depend on plastic deformation and fracture within the
coating, rather than any adhesive failure at the coating—substrate interface, may be just as useful in the assessment
of coating quality for tribological applications. In this study, titanium nitride coatings have been deposited onto
a range of different substrates from soft nickel to a hard cemented carbide and the failure modes which occur
during scratch testing have been identified. Failures fall into two general groups, depending on whether the
substrate behaves in a brittle or ductile manner during the scratch test. Similar failure modes are observed for
titanium nitride coatings produced by several deposition technologies, although there is some variation in the
appearance of specific failures which is process dependent. Many of the same failure modes are also observed
for other coating materials, such as ZrN or hard carbon, but several different types of failure are also observed.
The generation of acoustic emission during the test is related to the occurrence of these different failure modes.
The origin of the failure modes and the use of the scratch test to assess coating—substrate adhesion are discussed
in the light of these observations.

1. Introduction factors which still need to be understood if the test is

A qualitative measure of the adhesion of a thin hard
coating to its substrate can generally be achieved using
the scratch adhesion test [1—3].The test is very easy
to perform; a loaded diamond stylus (generally a Rock-
well C diamond with a tip of 200 ~im radius) is drawn
across the surface under increasing load (either stepwise
or continuous) until some well-defined failure occurs
at a load which is called the critical load L~.If the
test is to be used as a measure of adhesion, this failure
must occur as a result of detachment at the coat-
ing—substrate interface which is not always very easy
to identify. Thus a recognizable event along a track is
generally used, such as the complete stripping of the
coating to uncover the substrate or regular chipping
along the edge of the track, which is then related to
coating—substrate adhesion but not in any simple man-
ner. If performed with care, the technique can be
reproducible and enables the adhesion of a number of
similar coatings to be ranked; however, there are several
*Paper presented at the 18th International Conference on
Metallurgical Coatings and Thin Films, San Diego, CA, April
22—26, 1991.
to be used more reliably.
A number of workers have identified failure modes
associated with the scratch test bypostfacto observation
of the scratch track using reflected light microscopy
(RLM) or scanning electron microscopy (SEM) [4-9].
Some of the failure mechanisms have recently been
confirmed by in situ SEM scratch testing [10] and the
viewing of the scratch testing of coatings on transparent
substrates from beneath by transmitted light microscopy
during the test [11]. Additional failure modes have
been identified in these latter studies which may not
be directly relevant to the scratch adhesion test owing
to the geometry and size of the stylus used [10] and
the properties of the coating material [11]. Although
only a few of the failure modes depend on detachment
at the coating—substrate interface, and are thus of direct
relevance to the scratch test as a measure of adhesion,
other types of coating failure (such as cracking through
the coating thickness) may determine the behaviour of
a coated component in a particular application and are
thus equally important. In this paper, some of the
coating failure modes which are observed for sputtered
and arc-evaporated titanium nitride coatings on a range
26 S. J. Bull I Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing

of substrate materials are presented and their origins
discussed. The occurrence of the failure modes is
correlated with the acoustic emission signals generated
during the test. These results are compared with those
from similar scratch tests performed on other coating
materials.
2. Experimental details
Titanium nitride coatings were deposited onto a range
of substrate materials by sputter ion plating [12], mag-
netron sputtering [13] and arc evaporation [14]. All
substrates were carefully cleaned and vapour degreased
prior to coating and a thin titanium interlayer was used
to promote adhesion [15]. For the sputter-ion-plated
coatings an additional set of samples was produced
with no interlayer present for the initial screening
studies. Details of the substrate materials are shown
in Table 1. In addition to the titanium nitride films,
other coating materials, such as ZrN, were deposited
by sputter ion plating and some hard carbon films were
also produced by plasma-assisted chemical vapour de-
position (PACVD) [16]. All of these other materials
were deposited Onto a stainless steel substrate. All
coatings were nominally 2 jsm thick in this study,
although a variation of 10%—15% between different
substrates was measured by ball cratering. Where pos-
sible all the substrates were coated under fixed con-
ditions in a single coating run.
Scratch adhesion testing was performed using a corn-
mercial scratch tester (supplied by CSEM, Switzerland)
fitted with a Rockwell C diamond stylus (cone apex
angle, 120°;tip radius, 200 gm). Scratches were per-
formed using a range of fixed dead loads for a traverse
length of 3 mm. Initial scratches were performed at a
load of 200 gf and subsequently at 100 gf increments
up to loads at which some stripping of the coating was
TABLE 1. Substrate materials used in this study
observed (well beyond the critical load). The tester was
fitted with acoustic emission monitoring equipment,
which can detect emission in the vicinity of 100 kHz,
in order to determine failure without the need for any
microscopic observation. However, scratches were ex-
amined by RLM and SEM and the formation of features
within the tracks was correlated with the acoustic
emission observations to investigate the reliability of
using this technique to detect failure at the coat-
ing—substrate interface.
3. Scratch test failure modes for titanium nitride
coatings
3.1. Initial screening trials
To detect the widest possible range of coating failure
modes, scratch tests were performed on sputter-ion-
plated titanium nitride coatings, 2 im thick, deposited
without any interlayer onto a range of substrate ma-
terials. In order to assess the relevance of the test for
adhesion measurement, all the scratches were examined
by RLM and the load at which uncovered substrate
was visible regularly along the scratch track (by whatever
failure mode this was achieved) was used to define the
critical load. This load is plotted as a function of the
hardness of the substrate in Fig. 1, and it is clear from
the results presented here that two distinct types of
behaviour occur, depending on whether the observed
failure is brittle or ductile. In general, for ductile failure
the area of uncovered substrate is small and confined
within the track, whereas brittle failure is more extensive
and often extends beyond the limits of the scratch
track. Ductile failure is generally observed for ductile
substrate materials, whereas brittle failure is associated
with the harder ceramic substrate materials. However,
some materials such as stainless steel can show both
brittle and ductile behaviour, depending on sample
preparation. For the stainless steel substrates investi-
gated here, those which were coated without an ion
clean prior to the nitride deposition showed brittle

7
behaviour, which implies that the oxide layer on the
steel surface has an effect on coating adhesion. The
Substrate material Hardness Ductile or
(10 Jsm) brittle failure
2) 4000
(kgf mm
“20” carbon steel 120 Ductile 0 Sputtering
• Arc evaporation
I
Stainless steel 160 Ductile
Quenched BOl 230 Ductile 0
Tungsten 500 Brittle
M2 tool steel 600 Ductile 2000 _—~~ITTLE
Molybdenum 400 Ductile 1000 0

Nickel 120 Ductile 0

Titanium 269 Ductile 0 0

Silica glass 1000 Brittle 1000 2000
Silicon 900 Brittle Substrate Hardness (VHN)
WC—Co 1600 Brittle Fig. 1. Variation in critical load with substrate hardness for
MgO 800 Brittle titanium nitride coatings (2 Mm) deposited onto a range of brittle
___________________________________________________________ and ductile substrates by sputter ion plating.
 S. I. Bull / Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing
critical loads for ductile failure (exhibited by most metal
substrates) are very much higher than those observed
for brittle materials, even those of comparable hardness,
and thus for the best scratch adhesion there is a
requirement for ductile failure. Part of the success of
titanium interlayers in promoting the adhesion of coat-
ings may well be due to the enhancement of ductile
failure at the coating—substrate interface [17].
Failure modes for ductile and brittle coating and
substrate materials have been analysed theoretically for
very simple loading geometries [18]. Depending on
whether the applied stresses (which may be residual
stress) are tensile or compressive, the typical failure
modes are shown in Table 2. For ductile substrates,
interfacial failure can occur for both tensile and corn-
pressive stresses if the interfacial adhesion is poor, but
failure tends to occur within the coating if adhesion
is good. For brittle substrates, interfacial decohesion
is again observed for both tensile and compressive
stresses if the adhesion is poor, but there is also a
reasonable probability for interfacial cracking for tensile
stresses even if the adhesion is good. Furthermore, if
failure occurs within the substrate (as in the case of
a brittle film on a brittle substrate with good adhesion
under compressive stresses) this can lead to chipping
and loss of the overlying coating. The observation that
the ductile failures lead to higher critical loads is broadly
in agreement with these theoretical results. However,
the stress fields associated with the scratch test are
very much more complicated and have not been ad-
equately analysed to date. Both tensile and compressive
stresses are induced in the coating—substrate system
during the test and so a complex interplay between all
the possible failure modes is expected.
3.2. Brittle failure modes
Examples of all the failure modes previously observed
for titanium nitride films [5—9]have been found for
the coatings produced in this study. However, a number
of extra failure modes have also been observed in the
case where the substrate is brittle. The main brittle
failure modes are illustrated schematically in Fig. 2
TABLE 2. Failure modes for thin films
Stress Film Substrate
Tensile Brittle Ductile
Compressive Brittle Ductile
Tensile Brittle Brittle
Compressive Brittle Brittle
27
with some scanning electron micrographs to show how
the failures appear in practice. Large area spallation
(Fig. 2(a)) is very common if the adhesion is poor or
if the residual stress level in the coating is high. In
this case, as the diamond contacts the coating at the
start of the track, or at some point along the scratch,
a crack is formed at the coating—substrate interface
which propagates a considerable distance either side
of the track before coming to a halt. This crack may
nucleate at a large interfacial flaw or derive from
through-thickness cracking. Another very common fail-
ure mode is spallation in which the coating is detached
to minimize the amount of elastic energy stored by the
large compressive stresses ahead of the moving stylus.
Again this implies relatively poor adhesion and leads
to semicircular cracks which propagate outwards from
the centre line of the track (Fig. 2(b)). This failure
mode leads to chipping at the trackside (for brittle
substrates) if the interfacial crack propagates outside
the line of the scratch before the diamond stylus passes
over it. Once the stylus has reached the spalled region,
it
thewill either or
press thea coating back into contact with
substrate cause chip to be removed particularly
if some through-thickness cracking also occurs. These
spallation failures generally leave signs of damage in
the track as well as chipping along its edge. As the
coating thickness increases, this failure mode becomes
more likely. In addition to the chipping associated with
features in the tracks, chipping is observed which is
not related to any delamination initiated ahead of the
indenter. This chipping occurs as the result of delam-
ination initiating at through-thickness cracks and prop-
agating once the cracked material passes out of the
loaded region (i.e. behind the scratch stylus). Such
delamination is due to the differential elastic recovery
of the coating and substrate [19]. It is not unusual to
find both these recovery cracks and compressive spal-
lation cracks along the same length of scratch track
and it can be very difficult to tell the difference between
them; however, as the level of residual stress in the
coating increases, the compressive spallation failures
become more apparent. Both types of failure depend
on coating—substrate adhesion and can be used to
determine the critical load, but they lead to very different
Interface bonding Decohesion mechanism(s)
Good Film cracking (no decohesion)
Poor Film cracking (interface decohesion)
Good Buckle propagation in film
Poor Buckle propagation at interface
Good Film cracking and interface decohesion
Poor Edge decohesion at interface
Good Substrate splitting
Poor Buckle propagation at interface
28 S. J. Bull / Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing

(a) .v~ formal cracking occurs only rarely and is mainly observed
in ductile failure cases; this is treated in more detail
in the next section. However, a very similar apparent
failure mode can be seen for very brittle substrates i.e.
hertzian ring cracks, as observed in the scratch testing
of brtttle bulk materials form along the scratch track
(Fig. 2(d)). In this case, the tensile radial stresses at
the edge of the diamond contact generate a ring crack
GROSS SPALLATION ... .. . which propagates from the surface through the coating
)b) . .... into the substrate. As the stylus moves, several of these
~-~----~ ) . cracks are formed which can intersect and cause a
crack network along the edge of the scratch track.
Where such cracks overlap, considerable chipping occurs
I and the coating may be removed. These hertzian cracks
)
. . ..

I the
may provide the through-thickness cracking that initiates
elastic recovery cracking. This may also arise from

COMPRESSIVE SPALLATION “ the cracks which form at the rear of the diamond
contact (Fig. 2(e)) in response to the tensile stresses
Ic) I _____ ..c~. ~

generated during sliding. If no scratch track is formed,

I ‘~ these will occur in an identical manner to the hertzian
~ ______ . cracking (although supplemented by the tangential trac-
tion); however, once a channel occurs, the shape of
.. the contact changes since the load is now mostly sup-
V .. . ~. ported on the front half of the indenter, and this will
L
[7 .
~.
it. . ..
.
lead to cracks
direction which
with less run perpendicular
curvature than in the to the sliding
hertzian case.
RECOVERY SPALLATION

(d) 3.3. Ductile failure modes

-‘
HERTZ CRACI<ING
le)
( 2~LLni
(T111ii~
TENS(LE CRACKING
Fig. 2. Brittle failure modes in scratch testing: (a) gross spallation;
(b) spallation ahead of the indenter; (c) recovery spanation
behind the indenter; (d) hertzian cracking; (e) tensile cracking.
values with the recovery cracking occurring at lower
loads,
Since brittle failure modes tend to occur for hard
substrates, very little plastic deformation of the substrate
occurs during the test, and those failure modes as-
sociated with the bending of the coating into the scratch
track are only observed at relatively high loads. Con-
These show many similarities to the brittle failure
modes, but are generally characterized by lower crack
. areas, smaller chipped or spalled regions and a larger
number of failure events because of this. Typical dia-
grams of the main failure modes are shown in Fig. 3
with accompanying scanning electron micrographs. The
spallation and buckling failure modes (Figs. 3(a) and
3(b)) are very similar to the spallation mode for brittle
- failure, except that the magnitude of failure is smaller
and generally confined within the scratch track for very
thin
of thecoatings.
moving Both of these
withfailure modes occur ahead
indenter, spallation being enhanced
by the pile-up of soft substrate material ahead of the
stylus. In general, spallation occurs where the adhesion
is poor or for thicker coatings where the driving force
to reduce stored elastic energy is larger. For films
deposited in this study, the spallation or buckling, which
occurs ahead of the indenter, is confined to an area
sufficiently small that, when the stylus passes over the
failure, the damage associated with it is constrained
within the scratch track. Both spallation and buckling
failures occur as a response to buckle propagation as
indicated in Table 2. Elastic recovery spallation, initiated
behind the stylus, was not observed for a ductile failure
case in this study, although it has been observed in a
limited number of cases where ductile substrates fail
in a brittle manner (e.g. for stainless steel without
sputter cleaning [171).
 S. J. Bull / Failure tnodes in scratch adhesion testing 29

Ia) 43~T will not be found in this region. Two factors will then
contribute to the stresses ahead of the indenter. The
pile-up of material ahead (and to the sides) of the
stylus causes bending of the coating which will place
the coating surface in tension. In addition, the friction
between diamond and coating causes the maximum
radial tensile stress to occur at the sides of the indenter;
this will be further supplemented by a tensile stress
at the rear of the contact where the indenter is separated
SPA LL AT ION from the deformed material. The tangential friction
also adds compressive stresses ahead of the indenter
Ib) _______
__ which lead to the spallation and buckling failures.
Tensile cracking will thus occur initially at the sides
of the indenter (whatever the friction) and this manifests
itself as cracks at the track edge parallel to the scratch
direction. These are observed at similar loads for most

~II of the
into
over
can occur
substrates
become
and
the ahead
pushes
scratch of
investigated
cracked
intothe
track.
the indenter,
ahead
All ofhere.
track.
of In
thewhich
thesePartial
it as
addition,
stylus then
failuresring
the ispasses
cracks
it lead
coating
bent
to
BUCKLING
through-thickness cracking at the front and sides of
Ic) 6O~.tm the indenter which may be conveniently termed con-
_________ ______ formal cracking (Fig. 3(c)). It is difficult to speculate
_______ on the origins of cracks observed in post facto analysis,
particularly as these have often passed under the stylus
and hence become very complex. Cracking also occurs
at the rear of the contact due to the tensile stresses
generated here on sliding, as observed for the brittle
materials (Fig. 3(d)). Together with the conformal
cracking this contributes much of the damage visible
CONFORMAL CRACKING in the bottom of the scratch track and can make the
other failure modes difficult to identify.

.
(dl I—I 38j.un
I~ ~I

I ...__—i All of the cracking events encountered in this study

~ . 3.4. Acoustic
give rise to some
emission
acoustic
and failure
emission output and, from
the position along the track at which a failure is observed,
it is possible to identify the acoustic emission signal
II ___________

associated with it. Indeed, it was found that the amount

I—~
I ~——...~_-—-

TENSILE CRACKING
of acoustic emission recorded from a single failure was
approximately proportional to the area of the crack
which generated it. The correlation of large pulses of
acoustic emission with coating detachment has been
Fig. 3. Ductile failure modes in scratch testing: (a) spallation;
(b) buckling; (c) conformal cracking; (d) tensile cracking. reported previously by several workers [6, 9, 201 and
in these cases there is often a large area of uncovered
substrate. Since the area of cracking at the coat-
The two other common failure modes for ductile ing—substrate interface can be very much larger than
failure are conformal cracking and tensile cracking. the area of through-thickness cracking, it would appear
Since considerable groove formation was observed for that the generation of a large amount of acoustic
all ductile materials tested here, the load on the diamond emission in the scratch test should be an indicator of
stylus is transferred to the front half of the indenter interfacial failure by which the critical load for coating
once sliding starts, which effectively doubles the contact detachment can be defined. In the cases where adhesion
stress. Since there is virtually no load on the back half is poor or failure occurs in a predominantly brittle
of the indenter, hertzian cracks (partial ring cracks) manner, this is a good failure criterion and correlates
30 S. J. Bull I Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing
well with loss of adhesion. However, there are a number
of factors which need to be taken into consideration.
(1) For hard materials, considerable acoustic emission
is generated in the uncoated substrate during the scratch
test to which the signals from the coating will need to
be added. In this case, the load at which there is a
rapid increase in the difference between maximum and
minimum acoustic emission is a better failure criterion,
(2) For very thick coatings, chipping within the coating
will generate considerable acoustic emission and will
only occur above a critical load.
(3) For hard substrates, chipping in the substrate
which coincidentally removes the coating will also lead
to acoustic emission generation.
(4) For soft ductile substrates, the area of detached
coating, and hence the size of the acoustic emission
signal, is small and it can be compared with the acoustic
emission signals from other failure modes.
There is no real solution to factors (2) and (3) apart
from post facto analysis of the scratch track. Similarly,
the generation of acoustic emission during the test is
a much less useful way of defining failure in the scratch
testing of ductile substrate materials because the acous-
tic emission signal generally contains contributions from
all the failure modes. Figure 4 shows schematic acoustic
emission traces for the major failure modes in brittle
and ductile materials,
For ductile substrates, because of the problems with
the generation of low acoustic emission signals, a much
better failure criterion is to locate the load at which
there is a maximum in the mean acoustic emission
BRITTLE DUCTILE
Spallation/Bucklirig Spallatinn
_____________ _Xk. ~ crack area than visible in the microscope. It is tempting
Recovery SpallatLon Buckling
~ is then closed up when the stylus passes over it, leaving
______________
Hertz Cracking Confnrmal Cracking
~ erable variation in the appearance of the failures and
______________ ______________
Tensile Cracking Tensile Cracking
(a) (b)
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the acoustic emission generated by
different failure modes for (a) brittle and (b) ductile failure,
generation over a fixed length of scratch track. As the
amount of cracking in the track increases with load,
the mean acoustic emission level along a fixed length
of track also increases. However, once some spallation
occurs, the total amount of cracking in the track is
reduced and a concomittant reduction in the acoustic
emission generation is also observed. In this study, it
has been found that the maximum in mean acoustic
emission occurs at the load where uncovered substrate
material is found regularly along the scratch track.
3.5. The effect of deposition technology on obser’i.’ed
failure modes
The types of failure mode which are observed for
sputter-ion-plated titanium nitride films are also ob-
served for magnetron-sputtered films on the same stain-
less steel substrate (Figs. 5(a) and 5(b)). In both cases,
the coating thickness and surface topography are similar
and all the ductile failure modes are observed. However,
in the case of arc-evaporated titanium nitride (Fig.
5(c)), the failure modes appear to be somewhat different.
The surface of the coating is very rough and considerable
cracking within the coating occurs during the scratch
test which leads to acoustic emission generation at all
loads. The coating is smoothed within the track, and
many cracks are observed at the track edge and within
it, which may be tensile and conformal cracks but may
also have other origins. The spallation failures which
are apparent in the track for sputter-ion-plated and
magnetron-sputtered titanium nitride are less easy to
see in scanning electron micrographs, but in reflected
light microscopy a rose-coloured halo of the correct
Sort of geometry is observed at loads which give rise
to relatively large amounts of acoustic emission. Careful
examination of the tracks by SEM confirms that these
are indeed buckling failures and they are associated
with pulses of acoustic emission which imply a larger
to suggest that this represents interfacial failure which
only a very slight sign that it has occurred.
Although it appears that similar failure modes are
found for all the titanium nitride coatings deposited
by physical vapour deposition (PVD), there is consid-
other types may well be observed for other deposition
technologies or other coating materials. In the next
section, the failure modes observed in the scratch testing
of other materials are discussed.
4. Failure modes for other coating materials
The amount of cracking which occurs within the
scratch track will depend on the fracture toughness of
 S. J. Bull / Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing
(a) SIP P~ P~~i~tron(ci
Fig. 5. Scanning electron micrographs of scratches (2 kgf) in titanium-nitride-coated (2 Mm) stainless steel deposited by (a) sputter
ion plating, (b) sputtering magnetron and (c) arc evaporation.
the coating material A rough assessment of toughness
can be made by analysing the amount of cracking in
the scratch track at a given load for a thin coating on
a soft substrate. By this approach it appears that
zirconium nitride is a tougher material than titanium
nitride and is less likely to undergo any cracking. For
this reason the failure modes observed in the scratch
testing of ZrN on a ductile stainless steel substrate are
somewhat different from the TiN case. Compressive
spallation failures are observed in the track, but these
are limited in extent and look very different. Both
conformal cracking and tensile cracking occur at a much
lower density than for TiN (Fig. 6(a)) and elastic
recovery chipping (a brittle failure mode) is also ob-
served. Since there is little difference between the elastic
modulus of ZrN and TiN, this implies that a brittle
interfacial layer is present. Presumably the zirconium
interlayer is much poorer at gettering surface contam-
inants than is titanium for the titanium nitride film, a
fact which is confirmed by the lower critical load for
this material,
Once spallation occurs there is a tendency for the
cracks to be deflected away from the interface towards
(al ~‘ ZrN (b) ADLC
60
Fig. 6. Scanning electron micrographs of scratch test failures for
stainless steel coated with (a) ZrN and (b) amorphous diamond-
like carbon,
31
Arc
the surface and this leads to large area cracking within
the coating. For this reason, considerable acoustic emis-
sion is generated as a consequence of interfacial failure,
even if the crack is not confined to the interface.
The occurrence of elastic recovery spallation can be
enhanced by increasing the difference in elastic modulus
between the coating and the substrate. For instance,
this failure mode is very common for diamond-like
carbon films produced by PACVD (which have a very
high modulus) on steel (Fig. 6(b)) or zirconium nitride
films on a low modulus zirconium alloy. The high
toughness of diamond-like carbon also has an effect
on the failure modes observed in the scratch testing
of this material on soft substrates. Fracture does not
occur easily on the bending of the coating into the
scratch track and interfacial failure can lead to the
detachment of large chips which still remain attached
to the coating outside the track. Diagonal cracks can
also be found in the track (Fig. 6(b)) and other types
of failure which are not simple to explain. Further work
is under way to clarify these issues.
5. Conclusions
The failure modes observed in scratch testing depend
on whether failure occurs in a predominantly brittle
or ductile manner. The size of the failures is large in
the brittle case and is accompanied by considerable
acoustic emission generation. Ductile failures tend to
be smaller and are associated with a lower acoustic
emission signal. When the failure observed in the scratch
test is predominantly brittle, the load at which there
is a rapid increase in the amount of acoustic emission
generated
for ductile can be used
failure, as better
a much the critical
criticalload.
loadHowever,
criterion
is to use the load at which there is a maximum in the
average acoustic emission signal generated along a fixed
length of scratch track. For both brittle and ductile
32 5. J. Bull I Failure modes in scratch adhesion testing
failures a range of failure modes are observed, not all
of which depend on coating—substrate adhesion. The
main adhesion failures are spallation and buckling
failures for ductile substrate materials and a mixture
of these and elastic recovery failures for more brittle
cases. Although similar failure modes have been ob-
served for several different coating materials and de-
position technologies, the appearance of the failures
changes with the system, and new failure modes specific
to certain coating—substrate combinations have been
identified. Considerable care must therefore be em-
ployed if scratch testing is to be used for the assessment
of coating—substrate adhesion.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the Corporate Research
Programme of AEA Technology.
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