Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Metals
Metals
METALS
By
R.JEEVAN RAM
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Metals are…
METALS
Ferrous Non-Ferrous Alloys
Containing iron & Do not contain iron. A mixture of
almost all are e.g. aluminium, metals, or a
magnetic. copper, silver, gold, metal & small
e.g. mild-steel, lid, tin etc. amount of
cast-iron, tool- other substance
Steel etc.
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PROPERTIES OF METALS
1. Strength - The ability of a material to stand up to forces being
applied without it bending, breaking, shattering or deforming in
any way.
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FERROUS METALS
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Cast Iron
• Cast iron is defined as an iron alloy with more
than 2% carbon as the main alloying element.
• In addition to carbon, cast irons must also contain
from 1 to 3% silicon which combined with the
carbon give them excellent castability.
• Cast iron has a much lower melting temperature
than steel and is more fluid and less reactive with
molding materials.
• However, they do not have enough ductility to be
rolled or forged.
Cast Iron
• Grey Cast Iron ‐ Interconnected graphite flakes
in pearlite matrix. Good vibration damping.
• White Cast Iron ‐ Used for their high hardness
and wear resistance. Martensite can be formed.
• Malleable Cast Iron ‐ A heat treated unalloyed
3% carbon white iron.
• Nodular Cast Iron ‐ The addition of
magnesium(Mg) causes spheroidal graphite to
grow.
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Type of
Carbon Silicon Manganese Sulfur Phosphorus
Iron
Gray 2.5 - 4.0 1.0 - 3.0 0.2 - 1.0 0.02 - 0.25 0.02 - 1.0
Ductile 3.0 - 4.0 1.8 - 2.8 0.1 - 1.0 0.01 - 0.03 0.01 - 0.1
Compacted Graphite 2.5 - 4.0 1.0 - 3.0 0.2 - 1.0 0.01 - 0.03 0.01 - 0.1
Malleable (Cast White) 2.0 - 2.9 0.9 - 1.9 0.15 - 1.2 0.02 - 0.2 0.02 - 0.2
White 1.8 - 3.6 0.5 - 1.9 0.25 - 0.8 0.06 - 0.2 0.06 - 0.2
Steel
• Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron
and has a carbon content between 0.2% and
2.1% by weight, depending on the grade.
• Carbon is the most common alloying material
for iron, but various other alloying elements
are used, such as manganese, chromium,
vanadium, and tungsten.
• Steel is a solid solution of iron and carbon, the
carbon is dissolved in the iron.
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Phases of Steel
• Steel, like water, can go through phase changes. With water, the phases are
solid, liquid, and gas. With carbon steel the phases are liquid, austenite, and
ferrite.
• If salt is added to water, the temperature of all the phase changes are
altered. This is why salt is a common ice melt compound. Salt will lower the
transition temperature of the liquid to gas, and lowers the temperature of
liquid to solid as well.
• When carbon is added to iron, the temperatures are altered in the same
way. The more carbon that is added (to a point), the lower the temperature
of the phase change will occur. Carbon also creates new phases that don’t
exist in iron by itself. Pearlite is a mixture of cementite (Fe3C) plus ferrite.
The most carbon that can be dissolved in austenite is 0.80%. This is called
“eutectic.” Other alloys can be described as being eutectic alloys. These
alloys have the maximum amount of the alloying element that can be
dissolved into the parent material.
• The more carbon you add to steel (above 0.20%), the more pearlite you get,
up to the 0.80%. Above 0.80% you get carbides. If a steel has less that 0.20%
carbon, all you can get is ferrite. If a steel has 0.40% carbon, you get pearlite
and ferrite. If a steel has 0.90% carbon, you get pearlite and carbides.
IRON‐CARBON PHASES
• Ferrite (α‐iron, δ‐iron)
• Austenite (γ‐iron)
• Pearlite (88% ferrite,
12% cementite)
• Martensite
• Bainite
• Ledeburite (ferrite‐
cementite eutectic,
4.3% carbon)
• Cementite (iron
carbide, Fe3C)
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Chemistry of a Steel
• To know the chemistry of a steel by knowing its grade, remember
the following rules: plain carbon steels are 10xx grades.
• 10 is plain carbon and the next two numbers are the carbon
content.
• All 10 grades also have manganese, phosphorus, and silicon.
• The last two numbers of ALL grades designate the carbon content.
• If a grade is 12L14 or 10B21, the L means it contains lead for
machinability and the B means it has boron for increased
hardenability.
• If you know the chemistry of the alloy, you will know its hardness,
strengths, and if a thermal treatment will work at all.
Classification of Steel
Steel can be classified according to
• The composition, such as carbon, low‐alloy or stainless steel.
• The manufacturing methods, such as open hearth, basic oxygen
process, or electric furnace methods.
• The finishing method, such as hot rolling or cold rolling
• The product form, such as bar plate, sheet, strip, tubing or
structural shape
• The deoxidation practice, such as killed, semi‐killed, capped or
rimmed steel
• The microstructure, such as ferritic, pearlitic and martensitic
• The required strength level, as specified in ASTM standards
• The heat treatment, such as annealing, quenching and tempering,
and thermomechanical processing
• Quality descriptors, such as forging quality and commercial quality.
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Types of Steel
• Carbon Steels
• Alloy Steels
• Tool Steels
• Stainless Steels
Carbon Steel
• Carbon steel is steel that has properties made up
mostly of the element carbon, and which relies
upon carbon content for its structure.
• The most perfect carbon structure in the world is
a diamond, which is 100% carbon.
• Carbon is present in all steel and is the principal
hardening element, determining the level of
hardness or strength attainable by quenching.
• It raises tensile strength, hardness, resistance to
wear and abrasion as the carbon content of steel
is increased. It lowers ductility, toughness and
machinability.
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• Carbon steel is a malleable, iron‐based metal
containing less than 2% carbon (usually less than
1%), small amounts of manganese, and other
trace elements.
• Steels can either be cast to shape or wrought into
various mill forms from which finished parts are
formed, machined, forged, stamped, or
otherwise shaped.
• Carbon steels are specified by chemical
composition, mechanical properties, method of
deoxidation, or thermal treatment.
Mild and Low Carbon Steel
• Mild steel is the most common form of steel because its
price is relatively low while it provides material
properties that are acceptable for many applications.
• Low carbon steel contains approximately 0.05–0.15%
carbon and mild steel contains 0.16–0.29% carbon,
therefore it is neither brittle nor ductile.
• Mild steel has a relatively low tensile strength, but it is
cheap and malleable; surface hardness can be increased
through carburizing.
• It is often used when large quantities of steel are
needed, for example as structural steel.
• The density of mild steel is approximately 7.85 g/cm3
and the Young's modulus is 2.1e5 MPa.
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Higher Carbon Steels
Carbon steels which can successfully undergo heat‐treatment
have a carbon content in the range of 0.30–1.70% by weight.
• Medium Carbon Steel
– Approximately 0.30–0.59% carbon content. Balances ductility
and strength and has good wear resistance; used for large
parts, forging and automotive components.
• High Carbon Steel
– Approximately 0.6–0.99% carbon content. Very strong, used
for springs and high‐strength wires.
• Ultra‐high Carbon Steel
– Approximately 1.0–2.0% carbon content. Steels that can be
tempered to great hardness. Used for special purposes like
(non‐industrial‐purpose) knives, axles or punches.
• Killed steel ‐ Steel treated with a strong deoxidizing
agent such as silicon or aluminum to reduce the
oxygen content so that no reaction occurs between
carbon and oxygen during solidification.
• Rimmed Steels ‐ Low carbon steels without any
significant presence of deoxidizing elements. Shows
good surface and ductility characteristics. Suitable
for moderate cold forming applications.
• Semikilled Steels ‐ Possessing characteristics in
between those of killed and rimmed steels.
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Applications of Carbon Steels
• Low Carbon Steel
• Industrial products such as Nuts, Bolts, Sheet, Strip, Plates, Shapes, Tubes
• Machined components subjected to low stresses
• Can be case hardened
• Medium Carbon Steel
• Used where strength and hardness requirements are greater than that of low carbon steel.
• Mechanical properties can be improved by quenching and tempering.
• Used for Rails, Railroad equipment, Lathe parts.
• Machined parts requiring moderate to high strength
• Crankshafts, Connecting rods, Axles, Gears & Automotive parts.
• Agricultural equipments
• High Carbon Steel
• Parts that require high strength, high hardness and good wear resistance.
• Cutting tools such as Drills, Reamers, Taps & Dies
• High strength rope, Cable, Music wire & Springs.
Alloy Steels
• Steels that contain specified amounts of alloying elements ‐‐ other
than carbon and the commonly accepted amounts of manganese,
copper, silicon, sulfur, and phosphorus ‐‐ are known as alloy steels.
• Alloying elements are added to change mechanical or physical
properties. Typically these properties include machinability,
wearability, and strength.
• An iron‐based mixture is considered to be an alloy steel when
manganese is greater than 0.165%, silicon over 0.5%, copper above
0.6%, or other minimum quantities of alloying elements such as
chromium, nickel, molybdenum, or tungsten are present.
• Technically, then, tool and stainless steels are alloy steels.
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Effect of elements in Alloy steels
Vanadium:
• It gives steel a fine‐grained structure and increase its
toughness.
• It is often used in tool steels because of its increased
resistance to impact.
• Increases hardenability
• Imparts strength and toughness to heat‐treated steel
• Causes marked secondary hardening
It is used with chromium to make chrome‐vanadium steel
from which transmission parts and gears are manufactured.
This type of steel is very strong and has excellent shock
resistance. Less than 0.2% is used normally with 0.5 to 1.5% of
chromium.
Chromium
• It provides corrosion resistance.
• Increase hardenability or the depth to which steel
can be hardened
• Adds hardness, toughness and resistance to wear.
Gears and axles are often made of chrome‐nickel
steel because of its strength. Chromium less than
0.2% can be effective in increasing hardenability.
Niobium
• Greatly increases tensile strength of steel. Only
40 lb of niobium per ton of steel will increase the
tensile strength by 10,000 to 15000 lb/in2.
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Tungsten in the form of tungsten carbide
• Gives steel high hardness even at red heats.
• Promotes fine grains
• Resists heat
• Promote strength at elevated temperatures
It is used with chromium, vanadium, molybdenum, or manganese to
produce high speed steel used in cutting tools. Tungsten steel is said to
be "red‐hard" or hard enough to cut after it becomes red‐hot.
Titanium is a very strong, very lightweight metal that can be used
alone or alloyed with steels. It is added to steel to give them high
strength at high temperatures. Modern jet engines uses titanium
steels.
• It prevents localized depletion of chromium in stainless steels
during long heating
• Prevents formation of austenite in high chromium steels
• Reduces martensitic hardness and hardenability in medium
chromium steels.
Phosphorus and Lead are added to steel to increase its
machinability.
• Phosphorus is considered detrimental in steel but
small quantities up to 0.2% in low carbon steels
increases hardness, strength and corrosion resistance.
• Phosphorus increases strength and hardness to
approximately to the same extent as carbon in steels
which are normally used in hot‐rolled conditions.
• In some steels, high phosphorus content is undesirable
because it decreases ductility and impact toughness.
• It is undesirable in high carbon steels on account of
excessive loss of ductility.
• It improves machinability in lower carbon steels and
improves resistance to atmospheric corrosion.
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Manganese is used in steel to produce a clean
metal. If manganese exceeds 1.65 ‐2.10%, the
product is classed as alloy steel.
• It increase hardenability and strength.
• It also adds to the strength of the metal and helps
in heat treating.
• Counteracts brittleness from sulphur
• Lower both ductility and weldability if present in
high percentage with high carbon content in
steel.
Some times an excess of manganese is used for
hard steel as manganese is a carbide forming
element.
Silicon is often used to increase the resiliency of steel for making springs.
• It increases the strength properties especially elastic limit without loss of
ductility.
• Silicon is an important alloying element (0.2 ‐ 0.7%) in certain high‐yield
point structural steels.
• If silicon exceeds 0.60‐2.2%, product is classed as alloy steel. Increasing
silicon increases resiliency of steel for spring applications. Spring raises the
critical temperature for heat treatment.
• Increasing silicon content promotes susceptibility of steel to decrease.
• It is used for magnetic circuits in electrical equipments.
• It is used in spring steels which contain 2% silicon, 0.2% manganese and
0.6 % carbon.
• It is the principal deoxidizing used in steel making.
– Improves oxidation resistance
– Strengthens low alloy steels
– Acts as a deoxidizer
Rimmed and capped steels contains no significant amount of silicon. Semi
killed steel may contain a moderate amount of silicon. Fully killed steels may
contain various amounts of silicon upto 0.30% maximum. It is less effective
than manganese in increasing strength and hardness. In low‐carbon steels, it
is usually detrimental to surface quality.
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Molybdenum
• Adds toughness and higher strengths to steel.
• Promotes hardenability of steel
• Makes steel fine grained
• Makes steel usually tough at various hardness levels
• Counteracts tendency towards temper brittleness.
• Raises tensile and creep strength at high temperatures.
• Enhances corrosion resistance in stainless steels.
• Forms abrasion resisting particles.
• It increases dynamic and high temperature characteristics.
• It is resistant to tempering and maintain their strength at
elevated temperature.
• They have good creep resistance.
• It is used for making high speed steels. It forms stable
carbides resulting in fine grain size.
Nickel
• Increases strength and toughness.
• Helps to resist corrosion.
• Improves shock resistance
• It counteracts brittleness which develops in most
pearlitic steels at subnormal temperature.
• It lowers the critical temperature of steel and widen
the temperature range for successful heat treatment.
• Strengthens steels
• Renders high chromium iron alloys austenitic
• Lessens distortion in quenching.
• Mostly 2‐5% of nickel combined with other alloying
elements produce toughness.
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Alloying Elements and the Effect on Steel
• Aluminum ‐ Deoxidizes and restricts grain growth.
• Boron ‐ Increases hardenability.
• Carbon ‐ Increases hardenability and strength.
• Chromium ‐ Increases corrosion resistance, hardenability and wear resistance.
• Lead ‐ Increases machinability.
• Manganese ‐ Increases hardenability and counteracts brittleness from sulfur.
• Molybdenum ‐ Deepens hardening, raises creep strength and hot‐hardness,
enhances corrosion resistance and increases wear resistance.
• Nickel ‐ Increases strength and toughness.
• Phosphorus ‐ Increases strength, machinability, and corrosion resistance.
• Silicon ‐ Deoxidizes, improves hardness and oxidation resistance.
• Sulfur ‐ Increases machinability, but damages hot forming characteristics.
• Titanium ‐ Forms carbides, reduces hardness in stainless steels.
• Tungsten ‐ Increases wear resistance and raises hot strength and hot‐hardness.
• Vanadium ‐ Increases hardenability.
Four Digit Alloy Numbering System
• 10xx ‐ Basic plain carbon steels
• 11xx ‐ Plain carbon steel with high sulfur & low phosphorous (Resulferized)
• 12xx ‐ Plain carbon steel with high sulfur & high phosphorous
• 13xx ‐ 1.75 manganese
• 23xx ‐ 3.50 nickel (series deleted in 1959)
• 25xx ‐ 5.00 nickel (series deleted in 1959)
• 31xx ‐ 1.25 nickel & 0.60 Chromium (series deleted in 1964)
• 33xx ‐ 3.50 nickel & 1.50 Chromium (series deleted in 1964)
• 40xx ‐ 0.20 ‐ 0.25 Molybdenum
• 41xx ‐ 0.50 ‐ 0.95 chromium & 0.12 ‐ 0.30 molybdenum
• 43xx ‐ 1.83 nickel, 0.50 ‐ 0.80 chromium & 0.25 molybdenum
• 44xx ‐ 0.53 molybdenum
• 46xx ‐ 0.85 or 1.83 nickel & 0.23 molybdenum
• 47xx ‐ 1.05 nickel, 0.45 chromium & 0.20 ‐ 0.35 molybdenum
• 48xx ‐ 3.50 nickel, & 0.25 molybdenum
• 50xx ‐ 0.40 chromium
• 51xx ‐ 0.80 ‐ 1.00 chromium
• 5xxxx ‐ 1.04 carbon & 1.03 or 1.45 chromium
• 61xx ‐ 0.60 or 0.95 chromium & 0.13 ‐ 0.15 vanadium
• 86xx ‐ 0.55 nickel, 0.50 chromium & 0.20 molybdenum
• 87xx ‐ 0.55 nickel, 0.50 chromium & 0.25 molybdenum
• 88xx ‐ 0.55 nickel, 0.50 chromium & 0.35 molybdenum
• 92xx ‐ 2.00 silicon
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Alloy steels are broken down into two groups: low alloy
steels and high alloy steels.
Low Alloy Steels
• Low alloy steels are usually used to achieve better
hardenability, which in turn improves its other
mechanical properties.
• They are also used to increase corrosion resistance in
certain environmental conditions.
• With medium to high carbon levels, low alloy steel is
difficult to weld.
• Lowering the carbon content to the range of 0.10% to
0.30%, along with some reduction in alloying elements,
increases the weldability and formability of the steel
while maintaining its strength. Such a metal is classed as
a high‐strength low‐alloy steel.
High‐strength low‐alloy steel
• High‐strength low‐alloy (HSLA) steel is a type of alloy
steel that provides better mechanical properties or
greater resistance to corrosion than carbon steel.
• HSLA steels vary from other steels in that they aren't
made to meet a specific chemical composition, but
rather to specific mechanical properties.
• They have a carbon content between 0.05–0.25% to
retain formability and weldability.
• Other alloying elements include up to 2.0% manganese
and small quantities of copper, nickel, niobium,
nitrogen, vanadium, chromium, molybdenum,
titanium, calcium, rare earth elements, or zirconium.
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• Their yield strengths can be anywhere between 250–590 MPa. Due
to their higher strength and toughness HSLA steels usually require
25 to 30% more power to form, as compared to carbon steels.
• HSLA steels are usually 20 to 30% lighter than a carbon steel with
the same strength.
Classifications
• Weathering steels: Steels which have better corrosion resistance. A
common example is COR‐TEN.
• Control‐rolled steels: Hot rolled steels which have a highly
deformed austenite structure that will transform to a very fine
equiaxed ferrite structure upon cooling.
• Pearlite‐reduced steels: Low carbon content steels which lead to
little or no pearlite, but rather a very fine grain ferrite matrix. It is
strengthened by precipitation hardening.
• Microalloyed steels: Steels which contain very small additions of
niobium, vanadium, and/or titanium to obtain a refined grain size
and/or precipitation hardening.
TOOL STEEL
Any class of carbon and alloy steels
commonly used to make tools. Tool steels are
characterized by high hardness and resistance to
abrasion, often accompanied by high toughness
and resistance to softening at elevated
temperatures. These attributes are generally
attained with high carbon and alloy contents.
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Stainless Steel
• Stainless steel is the generic name for a number of
different steels used primarily for their resistance to
corrosion.
• The one key element they all share is a certain minimum
percentage (by mass) of chromium: 10.5%.
• Although other elements, particularly nickel and
molybdenum, are added to improve corrosion resistance,
chromium is always the deciding factor.
• The vast majority of steel produced in the world is carbon
and alloy steel, with the more expensive stainless steels
representing a small, but valuable position market.
Stainless steels are commonly divided into five
groups:
• martensitic stainless steels
• ferritic stainless steels
• austenitic stainless steels,
• duplex (ferritic‐austenitic) stainless steels
• precipitation‐hardening stainless steels
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Common Steels used for Moulds
• It is not always easy to know which tool steel
is the right one for your plastic injection mold.
• That depends your needs. There are basically
four types of tool steel used in injection
moldmaking.
– Prehardened Steels
– Case Hardened Steels
– Through Hardened Steels
– Corrosion Resistant Steels
Prehardened Steels
• Some tool steels, mold steels and alloy steels
are offered in the pre‐hardened condition.
• These materials can be machined and
polished but are supplied at the designated
working hardness of the material, and can be
heat treated or nitride processed to obtain a
higher hardness if required.
• Examples ‐ P‐20, NAK‐55, NAK‐80.
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ADVANTAGES
• Available in the hardened and tempered
condition having hardness about 25 – 30 HRC
• No heat treatment is necessary before the
mould is put into use.
• Surface hardness can be further increased by
flame hardening or nitriding.
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Advantages
– Available in soft annealed & stress relieved condition.
– Also available in hardened and tempered to the required hardness level
(48 – 60 HRC)
– Better wear resistance, resistance to deformation and indentation
– Better polishibility
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Strength of Materials
The designer must know what forces are present within the mold when deciding
on the strength of the mold component to resist these forces. The most important
forces acting within the mold affect these strengths:
1. Tension: the forces created by the injection pressure of the plastic inside the
runner system and in the cavity space, usually requiring high tensile strength
2. Compression: the compressive strength required to counteract the clamp force
of the machine, typically, the forces on the P/L, and the forces seen where
inserts are supported by plates, and so on
3. Bending (or deflection): the forces seen by cores, and by all plates, especially
the ejector and stripper plates
4. Wear: the forces created by wedge action, as in stripper rings and so on, or
tapers and wedges for alignment, which create wear on the matching surfaces
5. Torsion: the forces seen by coil springs and in mold features, such as
unscrewing, or in some robots
6. Shear: forces seen by dowels, or by the backup of wedges
Note that in many cases, we have combinations of any of the above forces.
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Surface Treatment Methods
• The surface treatment of a mold component has a significant effect on
its functionality. In mold making, surface treatments are employed to
achieve certain properties such as
– increased surface hardness,
– increased compressive strength,
– increased wear resistance,
– improved corrosion resistance,
– improved sliding properties,
– improved de‐molding.
• The following surface treatment methods have proven useful in mold
making in particular:
– Nitriding,
– Carburizing,
– Hard chrome plating,
– Hard nickel plating,
– Hard coating.
Techniques of Surface Treatment
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• Nitriding‐ Introducing nitrogen into the surface layer
of a solid ferrous alloy by holding at a suitable
temperature in contact with a nitrogenous material,
usually ammonia or molten cyanide of appropriate
composition.
• Carburizing ‐ Absorption and diffusion of carbon into
solid ferrous alloys by heating, to a temperature
usually above Ac3, in contact with a suitable
carbonaceous material. A form of casehardening that
produces a carbon gradient extending inward from
the surface, enabling the surface layer to be hardened
either by quenching directly from the carburizing
temperature or by cooling to room temperature, then
reaustenitizing and quenching.
Hard Chrome Plating
• The electrolytic deposition of hard chrome layers is
used especially to achieve hard and wear‐resistant
surfaces that have proven effective for mold
components used for processing abrasive plastics.
• Moreover, the hard chrome layer serves to reduce the
tendency to gall and considerably improves corrosion
resistance (multi‐layer chrome plating).
• Hard chrome plating also finds application for the
repair of worn surfaces.
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Hard Nickel Plating
• During the chemical hard nickel plating process, nickel layers
are deposited without the use of an imposed electric current.
• With this method, the formation of different film thicknesses
along edges in particular (bead formation), which is
characteristic of electrolytic methods, does not occur.
• This means that through holes, openings, profiled surfaces,
etc. can generally be nickel plated without problem.
• The film thickness usually employed is approx. 40 μm.
Hardcoating
• To achieve high wear resistance along with very good
corrosion resistance, coatings based on titanium
nitride and other similar materials have proven
especially useful.
• To improve the corrosion resistance, it is advisable,
for example, to chrome plate the surface before
hardcoating.
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