Wear resistance of surface treated metal-working tools

Abstract

Tools in metal-working applications experience considerable amounts of wear that lead to degradation of tool performance, reduction in production and limitation of tool life. By using surface treated tools to combat wear, improvement in production quality, increase in production and reduction in down-time in repair and replacement can be achieved. Since hot forging subjects dies to some of the most severe conditions experienced in metal-working, it was chosen as the wear resistance test in this investigation. The two types of steel employed were No. 5 die steel and H.13 hot work steel. The surface treatments chosen for wear study were titanium nitride coatings deposited by chemical vapour deposition, and vanadium carbide coatings deposited by the Toyota Diffusion process.