# A New Plasma Surface Alloying to Improve the Wear Resistance of the Metallic Card Clothing  
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1 College of Materials Science and Technology, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Nanjing 211106, China; [EMAIL_ADDRESS] (S.L. ); chenxiaohu@nuaa. impurities being mixed with the cotton fiber, the metallic card clothing front and the tooth surface top are passivated. The wear occurs mainly on the upper part of the card wire teeth. The actual working angle on the tip of the wire teeth became high, causing the metallic card clothing to lose its fiber grip ability gradually and having tremendous effect on the carding quality [1]. In addition, during the high-speed friction, the friction heat effect could cause the metallic card clothing wires to reach a high temperature, which would lead to the metallic card clothing tip softening. The friction heat could be used to transform the abrasive grain wear into hard abrasive wear [2]. Both the temperature change and the thermal shock could also be the sources of surface fatigue, which lead to a fatigue failure [3]. Heat treatment has often been used for improving the hardness of the metallic card clothing so as to improve the wear resistance. Main heat treatment methods include spheroidizing annealing and quenching. The wear resistance of the metallic card clothing is improved after quenching. However, the heating parameters are unstable in the process of quenching, which can cause uneven microstructure. The higher content of carbon causes rapid rising of austenite grain after quenching. As the same time, martensitic carbon content will increase and more twins martensitic are formed during quenching, which is harmful to limit micro crack propagation [1,2]. Therefore, there exists some disadvantages in improving the anti-wear property of the metallic card clothing in the traditional heat treatment method. Recently, certain new surface modification technologies have been utilized to improve the wear resistance of the materials. The double glow plasma surface metallurgy technology provided a new plasma strengthening process for the wear resistance improvement of the metallic card clothing. The double glow plasma surface metallurgy technology (referred to as \"double glow technology\") is a new metal surface alloying technology, developed independently by Chinese scholars ([PERSON]) on the basis of ion nitriding and sputtering. The schematic illustration and equipment drawing is presented in Figure 1. The anode-source electrode (target) and the anode-substrate electrode (substrate) formed two independently regulating discharge systems [4]. During experimentation, the chamber was vacuumed and the working gas (argon) was injected. When a pulsed DC power supply was switched on, a glow was generated between the anode and the source electrode, as well as between the anode and substrate electrode due to the plasma discharge. Simultaneously, the argon was ionized into argon ions. Under the electric field, the argon ions continuously bombarded the source and substrate electrodes. The constant bombardment of argon ions caused the cathode temperature to increase, reaching the pre-penetration temperature. The constant bombardment of argon ions caused the target to continuously splash target ions (M) [4]. Under the electric field, the target ions (M) were deposited on the substrate and diffused to the interior, forming an alloyed layer with specific properties [5]. The alloy layers are formed by the deposition and diffusion of the elements, whereas the corresponding composition and properties present a gradual distribution with depth, which demonstrated the metallurgical bonding characteristic. This structure could effectively improve the adhesion between the alloy layer and substrate.