Plasma Nitriding / Duplex Coatings
Plasma Nitriding for Duplex Coatings
Tools in metal forming and other challenging forming applications are highly susceptible to abrasive and adhesive wear and fatigue. That is why the forming industry uses surface treatments and coatings to extend the lifetime of forming tools and increase their performance. Ionbond offers duplex coating solutions, which give excellent results close to chemical vapor
deposition (CVD) coatings, but without affecting the dimensional accuracy by this high-temperature coating technology.
Ionbond™ duplex coatings consist of a plasma nitriding step followed by a physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating selected from Ionbond’s coating portfolio. Plasma nitriding creates a hard surface with a high resistance to abrasive wear and thermo-mechanical fatigue. It is a low-cost, thermo-chemical diffusion process that can be done at temperatures low enough to not require heat treatment afterwards.
Key features
- Increased surface hardness in the range between 900 HV2 and 1,300 HV2 to support the PVD hard coating and enhance the load-carrying capability of the tool
- Smooth hardness gradient between the coated functional surface and the substrate improves coating adhesion and tool durability
- High thermal and mechanical fatigue strength increases the ability to withstand loads in challenging metal forming applications such as stamping advanced high strength steel (AHSS)
- Precise process control allows for compound layer-free plasma nitriding with low surface roughness
- Process temperature is kept below 500 °C to maintain dimensional accuracy and tight tolerances of the tools
- No post-coat heat treatment is required
- Dedicated plasma nitriding equipment permits nitriding with nitriding hardness depth (NHD) in the range between 50 µm and 200 µm (and beyond)
- Tools are treatable up to a maximum size of 1,800 mm (70’’) height and 1,000 mm (39’’) diameter and a maximum weight of 5 tons (10,000 lbs)
Duplex coating combinations
- Duplex Ionbond™ 30
- Duplex Ionbond™ 35
- Duplex Ionbond™ 357
- Duplex Ionbond™ 90
- Duplex Ionbond™ 95
- Duplex Ionbond™ 962
Typical FMT applications for duplex coatings
- Extrusion punches and dies
- Forging die
- Bending dies
- Stamping dies
- Draw punches and dies
- High pressure die casting dies and cores
- Plastic injection molds
- Rubber molds
Ionbond™ is covering the complete manufacturing chain for coating your forming tool successfully and in the shortest possible time including mechanical pre-/post-coating treatment.