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Tool coating breakthough offers new tooling possibilities
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01/05/2007
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Oerlikon Balzers Coating has made a breakthrough in coating technology that opens up totally new possibilities for the design of high performance cutting tools.
For years, PVD-coated tools have driven substantial performance and productivity gains in cutting operations. In most cases, this successful trend has focused on metal-nitride coatings such as TiN, TiAlN or AlCrN.
Oerlikon Balzers Coating's proprietary and patented P3eTM technology see the deposition of hard metal-oxide coatings at coating temperatures below 600°C. The remarkable aspects are that conventional hard layers can be combined with hard metal oxides almost arbitrarily and that the properties of the coating system can be fine-tuned to an unprecedented degree. This opens totally new possibilities for the design of high-performance tools.
P3eTM is a new PVD process in which electron emission and plasma density are systematically influenced by a controlled pulsed current. This revolutionary new technology features high process stability and convenient operation. It has already been migrated to the latest generation of PVD production systems.
A first important domain for the innovative P3eTM technology is the coating of indexable inserts for milling and turning applications. P3eTM makes it possible to combine coating properties that so far were available only with a PVD or only with a CVD process. In just one process step, the typical benefits of PVD coating - namely sharper cutting edges, no embrittlement of substrates in the coating process, and a substantially reduced risk of crest cracking - can be combined with a benefit that until now was almost exclusively achievable with CVD: the deposition of hard, thermally and chemically stable metal oxides with good adhesion. technology is the coating of indexable inserts for milling and turning applications.
The deployment of the innovative P3eTM technology, in combination with optimised and advanced tool substrates, will allow indexable inserts to achieve a substantially higher level of cutting performance, ultimately leading to increased productivity.
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Author
Andrew Allcock
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