The service of Hard Coatings on Extruded Metal Molds

Extrusion die coatings for improving their life time and properties and friction reduction

The PVD coatings find increasing number of applications also on tools for forming such as extrusion. Extrusion molds are expensive to produce hence anything that reduces costs must be looked into and usage of PVD thin films is one of these things. The service life of these molds is significantly improved when coated with PVD thin film coatings. PVD coatings reduce sticking. This can mean that release agents are completely eliminated. High hardness, creep resistance, high yield strength, toughness at high temperature and tear and corrosion resistance are some properties which are expected from the materials used for extrusion molds. These properties can be provided by coating. Hard coating, such as CrN deposited by physical vapor deposition on extrusion dies has been used in order to increase their life time and properties. The hard coatings also significantly enhance the resistance to abrasion wear of the materials which are coated. The reduction of friction resulting from the lower friction coefficient of the coatings alone causes growing economic benefits. the other materials used in this category are CrAlSiN, TiN, TiAlN and etc.