Methods for Improving Wear Resistance

This talk will give an introduction to the fundamental definitions of wear, tribology, and friction, and give insight into the parameters that influence these properties.  It will show how wear and friction are system properties that can only be evaluated in terms of the conditions of a component. The realisation of this fact is important in order to create a common language and understanding, which makes it easier for product designers to make optimal materials selection or to estimate the impact of design choices on friction and wear properties. A common background and language gives an improved basis to speak to “tribology specialists”, whether they are materials engineers (e.g. coatings), chemists (lubrication) or mechanical tribologists and experimentalists.

The presentation will introduce physical vapour deposition (PVD) and new trends within the field. PVD is an industrially important process as the material demands are ever increasing. Coating solutions enable a decoupling of the bulk from the surface properties leading to new possibilities within process or product optimizations. Through cases, participants will gain insight into how wear reduction has been obtained leading to better production tools and processes.

Sur-Tech offers a wide range of electrochemical (galvanic) and chemical processes for the industry. Some of these processes are performed to improve the wear properties. This talk will go over 3-5 of these processes, supported by relevant cases. In addition to the highlighted cases, the talk will also present Sur-Tech’s experience with coating of different substrates – what went well and what didn’t?

Cobalt based alloys are well known solutions for wear and corrosion resistance in harsh environments. This talk will give an introduction to different types of Cobalt based alloys as well as basic information on properties and structure of each technology in addition to examples of application and manufacturing of customized wear parts. Different approaches to manufacturing wear parts with Cobalt based alloys will be shown along with a comparative evaluation of each technology, making it easier for participants to evaluate the relevance of each technology to a specific case.

TRD Surfaces has developed a new method for producing hard and corrosion resistant coatings for steel and stainless steel. Learn how the TRD diffusion technology produces a long-lasting surface on a broad range of products such as valves, nozzles and engine components. The technology is well-suited for complex geometries such as blind holes, threads and small passages, a situation where current coating technologies often falls short. The TRD technology is a new tool in the tool box for engineers, enabling more freedom on design and material selection.

Many surface hardening techniques for iron-based alloys are known, and well implemented in the industry. This talk will focus on surface hardening of stainless steel, the challenges that are associated with surface hardening of stainless, along with the benefits and drawbacks of different processes. Participants will leave the talk with an understanding of the importance of choosing the right surface hardening method. For example:

1. Did you know that one of the main challenges when surface hardening stainless steel is to keep the stainless properties intact?
2. Did you know that galling resistance can be improved to a point where it will just never happen?

To keep pace with the high growth rate of the developing industry, it is required to increase the productivity while ensuring high-quality products with good surface finish and tight tolerances.  In order to ensure an efficient manufacturing line, the practice is to use chlorinated paraffin oil. However, increased environmental awareness and legislations may require changes in lubrication systems. Testing new tribo-systems involves considerable costs and risks due to production stops. The goal of the presentation is to introduce an off-line methodology to predict the limits of lubrication in industrial metal forming processes. The overall method is based on a combined numerical and experimental approach. The entire methodology or parts of it can be beneficial in solving or predicting the wear-related problems that are often the focus of the forming industry.

In order to minimize wear and optimize the performance of interacting components in industry efficient testing is necessary. A common challenge with tribological tests is the difficulty in simulating real in-service conditions and how to possibly being able to accelerate them.  This talk will focus on the importance making wear testing for industrial purposes more efficient. It will give deal with basics on wear measurements, how to choose a relevant test that simulates the real wear mechanism, and basic statistics about wear damage in real life.