Abstract:In order to reduce the friction and wear of bump foil bearing,the WC12Co coatings were prepared by plasma spraying technology in disc specimens and bearing sleeves of bump foil bearings’ surfaces.Friction and wear properties of disc specimens were studied on a homemade pin disk friction and wear tester.The morphology and energy spectrum of friction and wear surface and cross section before and after test were analyzed by SEM and EDS.Friction and wear properties of the coatings used in the actual condition were explored by a bump foil bearing experiment platform.The results show that the boundary of coating and the substrate is clear and the coating and the substrate are combined closely.The whole coating is composed of stacked lamellar particles,and some very tiny pores are distributed in stacked lamellar particles.The combination way of coating is given priority to mechanical bonding,accompanied with a certain way of metallurgical bonding.The results of pindisk friction and wear test show that the WC12Co coating applied to the specimens has good friction reducing and antiwear properties,the average friction coefficient of WC12Co coatings is reduced about 50% and the average wear quantity is reduced about 78% compared with GCr15.The results of bump foil bearing experiment platform test show that the WC-12Co coating also shows very good friction reducing and antiwear properties,and the starting friction torque of the the bearing sleeves with WC12Co coating is reduced greatly.