In order to design the best combination of the coating and the substrate for preventing the yield,the semi-analytical method(SAM)was used to analyze the von Mises stress distributions in the contact system,and calculate the critical maximum contact pressure for yielding at the interface and surface in hard coating under both normal and tangential loads on three-dimensional elastic half space.From the results,it can be concluded that,to obtain a higher maximum critical contact pressure for the yield at the interface,increasing the substrate hardness and the ratio value of the coating thickness to the Hertzian contact radius(t/a0)is more effective when t/a0 is larger than 0.5 while increasing the substrate hardness or making the friction coefficient smaller is better when t/a0 is very small;to prevent yielding at the surface,choosing a relatively lower friction system or increasing the yield strength ratio of the coating to the substrate(Yf/Yb)will be effective. In order to design the best combination of the coating and the substrate for preventing the yield, the semi-analytical method (SAM) was used to analyze the von Mises stress distributions in the contact system, and calculate the critical maximum contact pressure for yielding at the interface and surface in hard coating under both normal and tangential loads on three-dimensional elastic half space. Flight the results, it can be concluded that, to obtain a higher maximum contact contact pressure for the yield at the interface, increasing the substrate hardness and the ratio value of the coating thickness to the Hertzian contact radius (t / a0) is more effective when t / a0 is greater than 0.5 while increasing the substrate hardness or making the friction coefficient smaller is better when t / a0 is very small; to prevent yielding at the surface, choosing a relatively lower friction system or increasing the yield strength ratio of the coating to the substrate (Yf / Yb) will be effective.