The main phenomena limiting the useful lifetime of tools are frictional wear and thermal fatigue in case of hot-work tools. The cost of wear is very high and comprises not only a shorter working life due to premature failure, but also downtime required to replace the worn part or tool. Gas nitriding increases the surface hardness, reduces the coefficient of friction and creates at the surface a zone of high compressive stresses. Therefore it is well placed to improve the performance of cutting tools, but also in particular the performance of hot-work tools, such as forging and extrusion dies. Nitreg® nitriding with its precise control of surface concentration of nitrogen allows to obtain reproducible properties of treated parts, and so a consistently high performance.
Types of applications:
- Aluminum die casting dies
- Aluminum die casting sleeves
- Aluminum extrusion dies
- Ejector pins
- Forging dies
- Forming dies
- Plastic extrusion screws & other related tooling
- Press dies
- Tool holder
Nitriding properties required: high wear resistance, impact strength, and resistance to softening, high dimensional stability.
Case study :
Drop-hammer forging blocks, made of H11 steel.
Nitreg® nitriding allowed a 100% increase of pieces forged per run over blocks only hardened and tempered to 44/46 HRC.
Hot forge press die for A-arm suspensions manufactured from an H13 block with Eurekalloy 660 flood weld. With Nitreg® nitriding added to quenching and tempering, the productivity per treated die rose from 10,000-12,000 suspensions to 25,000 minimum. Not only was the overall productivity doubled but machine time was reduced by half.
