**2. Experimental methods**

characteristics such as high hardness, high melting point, chemical stability, and wear resistance [1]. For these reasons, TiN is extensively used on cutting blades for longer service life, safe medical instruments, diffusion barrier in semiconductor apparatuses and architectural

As one wear-resistant coating, the coefficient of friction and wear rate of TiN films are high under dry friction conditions. Efforts to improve the tribological properties of TiN have included changed deposition parameter and doped chemical elements during the film prepa-

Surface treatments are applied extensively to improve the mechanical properties and tribological performance of many materials, which contain anodizing and hard anodizing, laser texture, mechanical rough, surface hardening, and so on. Among all the methods, blasting with different particles, as one kind of surface treatment technologies, is an effective low-cost surface-modifying method, which can be used to enhance the mechanical character in biomedical [10], automotive [11, 12], aerospace sectors [13], and other industrial applications [14, 15]. Blasting with different particles can enhance mechanical properties of many materials and protected coatings. Lee found that the shear loads for the Al5052/CFRP composites fabricated with treated Al5052 sheet, of which surface roughness (Ra) values were 1.84 and 4.25 μm, were three and five times higher than that of the composite fabricated by using the untreated sheet with Ra value of 0.73 μm, and the bending stress increased from 200 to 400 MPa [12]. During cold rolling process, weight losses for steel sheets finished by conventional acid pickling was greater than those of steel sheets finished using shot blasting [16]. Shot blasting treatment can improve the steam oxidation resistance of austenitic steel compared with previous report [17]. Abusuilik has investigated the effects of various surface treatments on the properties and performance of the hard coating, and found that material transfer and build-up at the coating surface were higher for the surfaces treated by grinding and shot blasting than those treated by other methods [18]. During the open pore metallic foam core sandwich panels prepared by thermal spraying of a coating, Salavati found that the coating porosity and adhesion strength were determined by the substrate surface roughness, which could be controlled by grit-blasting parameters [14]. Other studies of modified surface in metal substrates and some hard coatings on tribological properties are carried out under fully flood lubrication condition. Nakano investigated the effect of pattern texture by grit-blasting method for their tribological properties [19]. Groove pattern texture suppressed the generation of the hydrodynamic pressure, and the lubricating condition of the tests became boundary lubrication. Because the lubrication film became thicker and the hydrodynamic lubrication region was expanded for dimple pattern texture, the lower friction coefficient was lower than that of groove pattern texture. Additionally, some investigations of modified surface under starved lubrication are carried out in last decade, such as laser texture on steel [20, 21], copper [22],

However, only limited studies can be found in the literature associated with the friction and wear behavior of physical vapor deposited TiN film covered the grit-blasting steel substrate sliding against different materials under starved lubrication regime. This paper was investigated the tribological performance of different friction pairs under starved lubrication regime after grit blasting. And the tribological mechanism for different materials was discussed.

ration [2–5], surface treatments, and modifications during film post-processing [6–9].

decoration fields, and so on.

102 Lubrication - Tribology, Lubricants and Additives

hard coatings [23], and piston ring-cylinder [24].
