The work aims to improve the hardness and abrasion resistance of 316L stainless steel surface. Ni-Ti alloy film was prepared on the surface of 316L stainless steel substrate by adopting magnetron sputtering method. Nanoindentation tests were carried out on the surface of 316L stainless steel substrate, Ni-Ti alloy film and Ni-Ti alloy to test their mechanical properties and analyze abrasion resistance of Ni-Ti film. Meanwhile, finite element modeling (FEM) was adopted to establish the elastic-plastic exponent constitutive relation between the substrate and Ni-Ti film. 316L stainless steel material and Ni-Ti alloy exhibited weaker load-carrying capability while 316L stainless steel coated with Ni-Ti film exhibited better load-carrying capability and plastic deformation resistance. Hardness of Ni-Ti film, 316L stainless steel substrate and Ni-Ti alloy were 8.2795, 5.2405 and 2.9498 GPa, respectively. Hardness of the film was significantly greater than that of the substrate and Ni-Ti alloy, indicating that abrasion resistance of 316L substrate was greatly improved by coating with Ni-Ti film. Elastic property of film of the film was obviously superior to that of the substrate and Ni-Ti alloy. An ABAQUS 2D model was established to study elastic property of the film. Considering coefficient of friction between sample and Berkovich indenter as 0.16, nanondentation test, finite element analysis and inverse analysis were performed to calculate representative stress, representative strain, strain-hardening exponent and further the value of initial yield stress. Then the elastic-plastic exponent constitutive relation between the substrate and Ni-Ti film was established. Ni-Ti film is of excellent mechanical property, which can effectively improve the surface hardness and abrasion resistance of stainless steel.