ICMCTF2002 Session G2-1: Scale-up, Manufacturing Aspects and Industrial Applications

Tuesday, April 23, 2002 8:30 AM in Room Sunrise

Tuesday Morning

Start	Invited?	Item
8:30 AM	Invited	G2-1-1 Challenges for Industrial Scale Up and Implementation of High-Performance Coatings for Metal-cutting Applications - The Indian Experience Ramesh Keskar (Balzers India) Wear resistant coatings like Titanium Nitride, Titanium Carbonitride, Titanium Aluminium Nitride are imparted on high performance metal-cutting tools for the purpose of boosting the productivity from the cutting tools as well as to improve the tool life. Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) technique is normally used for deposition of such coatings on different types of metal cutting tools made from Cemented Carbides or High Speed Steel materials. Job coating centers for such a coating service is a common phenomena in USA and Europe where large number of tools are available from OEM tool manufacturers for job coating. A similar centre was established in Pune, India in 1995 with latest generation technology from Switzerland. The challenge involved was to overcome initial hurdles of beaurocracy , import problems and setting up of the facility. Training of personnel, educating the customer base and setting up logistic network was required to make this advanced technology successful at the doorsteps of end users. In the absence of OEM tool manufacturers, dependence was on large number of small volume customers. The challenge was also to develop an efficient logistic network to make effective turnaround time of tools that the end users could send the tools for recoating on daily basis. In a vast country like India with all its traffic and communication problems, this was most challenging tasks. A team of trained application engineers proved the effect of coating on productivity improvement by actual trials on the customer shop floor on gear cutting, miiling, drilling, tapping and other metal cutting tools. Today, after a period of 6 years, we have a chain of 3 state of the art coating centres located in key industrial belts of India serving more than 1000 customers with latest generation, multi-layer PVD coatings on metal cutting tools. A total of 70 trained personnel from production, logistics and application engineering areas give 365 days, 24 hrs job coating service to Indian automobile industry. The skill set of Indian engineers is so well developed in thin film high vacuum technology, we are able to export the expertise to developed countries at a much lower costs. Some of the high tech precoating and post coating equipment has been developed in India at much lower manufacturing costs. This paper reviews the challenges faced during scaling up the service centres to make the concept commercially successful in a developing country like India with lot of advanced performance results in the areas of metal cutting.
9:10 AM		G2-1-3 Ti(B,N) and TiB₂ Coatings Produced by PACVD R. Kullmer, C. Lugmair (Rübig GmbH & Co.KG, Austria); A. Figueras, J. Bassas (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain); M. Stoiber, E. Badisch (Materials Center Leoben, Austria); C Mitterer (University of Leoben, Austria) TiN, Ti(C,N) and (Ti,Al)N have been established as major industrial coatings with numerous applications in wear, corrosion and erosion protection. Rübig plasma-assisted chemical vapor deposition (PACVD) furnaces allow to produce these coatings combining the advantages of conventional high-temperature CVD and physical vapor deposition (PVD). PACVD allows to coat big and heavy steel tools of difficult three-dimensional geometry at temperatures below their tempering temperature. Boron containing hard coatings like Ti(B,N) and TiB₂ combine high hardness and chemical resistance, e.g., against molten aluminum which makes them promising for light metal die casting. These coatings have also attracted increasing interest because of their tribological properties. Within this work, coatings within the system Ti-B-N have been deposited onto tool steels using commercial Rübig PACVD plants. The coatings have been characterized with respect to their microstructure, mechanical and tribological properties as well as application behavior. The boron content has been varied in a wide range between single-phase TiN and single-phase TiB₂. XRD spectra for intermediate boron contents indicate a nanocomposite arrangement of TiN and TiB₂ based phases. The increasing boron content resulted in an increase in hardness and wear resistance. The friction coefficients were dramatically influenced by the chlorine and boron content in the coatings and by the humidity during ball-on-disc testing. Low friction coefficients of about 0.2 were observed for low boron contents and chlorine contents of about 3 to 4 at.-% in moist atmospheres. For higher boron contents the friction coefficient increased to about 0.4 at high humidity. However, decreasing chlorine contents and low humidity resulted in friction coefficients in the range of 0.6 to 0.9 independent on boron content. Finally, we will discuss possible applications of these recently developed coatings.
9:30 AM		G2-1-4 Advantages of Cylindrical Rotating Magnetrons in Metallic and Reactive Sputter Processes W.S. De Bosscher, P. Verheyen (Sinvaco, Belgium) Magnetron sputtering, combined with an accurate control of process parameters and layer quality, has become one of the most important methods for depositing thin films. However, this coating technique applied to planar target magnetrons suffers from some shortcomings (such as limited target utilization and low deposition rate) making it often sub-optimal for industrial purposes. Furthermore, the recent introduction of complex coating stacks for advanced automotive, architectural and display applications has put over more stringent requirements on the deposition process. The controlled (i.e. uniform and reproducible) reactive sputter process of thin metal oxide/nitride films on large area or high volume products, while efficiently handling arcing and anode problems, is one of the major present challenges. In this paper, the rotating cylindrical magnetron will be presented as the basic approach to deal with each of the problems mentioned above. By implementing new improvements to the magnet configuration of this magnetron concept, target utilization levels of more than 90% are feasible. In addition, local tuning of the magnetic field strength allows accurate layer thickness control over the substrate width. In comparison to standard planar magnetrons, much higher sputter yields may be achieved relative easily with both single and double racetrack designs. The superior properties of the rotating cylindrical magnetron in reactive sputtering become obvious after incorporating new technological developments. The arcing problem may be virtually eliminated, allowing DC reactive sputtering of most oxides and nitrides without the need of pulsing or AC switching. On the other hand, in a standard AC switching configuration, the anode functionality is quite limited for planar magnetrons because of the inhibiting magnetic field whereas cylindrical magnetrons have a much larger magnetic field free and total effective surface.
9:50 AM		G2-1-5 SimCoat- a Simulation Program Package for Industrial Vacuum Arc Coaters B. Schultrich, S. Voellmar (Fraunhofer Institute for Materials and Beam Technology, Germany) For the deposition of protective or decorative coatings, vacuum arc has been well proved and is now widely used on an industrial scale. Vacuum arc technology is distinguished by the high degree of ionization and the high kinetic energy of the film forming particles, which allow the deposition of very hard films from conventional titanium nitride up to tetrahedral bonded carbon. Due to the directional expansion of the energetic plasma beam the coating of three-dimensional parts is only possible by the relative movement of plasma source and substrates, usually managed by rotations of the substrate holders. Hence, the deposition conditions vary periodically leading to a more or less pronounced (nano)layered film structure. The simulation program SimCoat aims to support the structural and technological optimization of the deposition process in industrial vacuum arc coaters. It is based on the kinematics of substrate and plasma source movements and on simplified but experimentally supported modeling of the film growth carefully considering the real geometrical conditions. Besides others the output parameters include film thickness and film structure (composition, density variations) in dependence e.g. on the geometry of the parts, on their position inside the chamber or on the kind of batch. The program system SimCoat has a modular structure, which allows the stepwise implementation of additional features. Input and output windows are adapted on the demands of engineers. Apart from recording the numerical data, the process and its results can be visualized to get direct insight into the interrelations between process parameters and film properties. The potential of SimCoat is demonstrated for the deposition of tetrahedral bonded carbon films by the laser controlled pulsed vacuum arc technique (Laser-Arc) in a large volume industrial coater.
10:10 AM	Invited	G2-1-6 Prototype of Compact Module of High Energy Pulsed Plasmas for Surface Treatment of Materials J. Feugeas (Instituto de Fisica Rosario (CONICET-UNR) and PIPAD-PLADEMA, Argentina) Surface treatment by fast heating is a process that can induce important tribological and mechanical properties modifications on metals and alloys. The production of high-energy pulse plasmas with this purpose (plasma interaction with the surface of the material) presents additional benefits: firstly, the possibility of inclusion of active species (by the use of plasmas of nitrogen, carbon, etc.) in the surface during the processing and secondly, the induction of a fast heating-cooling cycle due to the pulsed nature of plasmas. Such a fast-pulsed plasma irradiation of surfaces can be considered as composed by the two simultaneous processes of "thermal shock" and "ion implantation". Z-Pinch experiments can produce pulsed plasmas and ion beams of 100 to 400 ns time duration with a spectral law dN/dE~E^-3.5 (number of ions N with energy E), with E in the range of 20-500 keV. A study of temperature evolution of substrates irradiated with this type of plasmas showed a heating rate of 15 K ns^-1, temperature gradients of around 1500 K μs^-1, and surface peak temperatures that can be adjusted from several hundred of K to values higher than 3000 K. We developed a compact Z-Pinch module of 30 cm x 30 cm of section, 1 meter length and a 45 kg weight, operated in a repetitive mode (5 Hz) with a charging voltage of 20 kV. The module was designed to allow its easy and fast disassembling and assembling for repairing or adapting purposes. Also, the design allows its easy mounting in any vacuum reaction chamber to be used in the surface treatment of different pieces and parts, being possible its combination with other modules of similar characteristics, distributed around and along specially designed chambers.
10:50 AM		G2-1-8 Validity of Laboratory Tests in Predicting the Behavior of Coated Surfaces in Production Die Casting A. Srivastava, V. Joshi, R. Shivpuri (The Ohio State University) Simplified controlled laboratory tests are often used to study fundamental wear and failure mechanisms, and to model the behavior of coatings and surface treatments in actual production. However, when the results of these laboratory tests are used to predict the behavior of these coated surfaces in actual production dies the correlations are not strong. This is paper examines the issues involved with scaling the laboratory data to actual production, and discusses the effect of differences in geometry (size, corners), process conditions (flow direction, thermal gradient, stresses) and production practices (maintenance, handling) on the tribological behavior of coated surfaces. Comparative evaluation of selected PVD, CVD and surface treated coupons in laboratory dip and thermal cycling tests, and in selected production beta sites at die casting companies form the basis of this discussion.
11:10 AM		G2-1-9 Performance of Innovative Dry Lubricant Coatings in Industrial Field Tests at the BMW Group H. Ziegele, J. Wenninger, E. Schillo, A. Schmidt (BMW Group, Germany); K. Tibari (Darmstadt University of Technology, Germany); U. Pecher (Universitat GH Kassel, Germany) BMW has carried out field-testing of various coating systems as an end-user in the project, 'Dry lubricant coatings for cutting and forming operations' under production conditions. The cutting performance of coated forming threads was evaluated using aluminium alloys under dry cutting conditions and also with minimal lubrication. In the latter case, tests are currently being performed on a special aluminium plate, in order to determine the tool-life under production conditions. In order to evaluate the performance of coated tools during forming, the production of a steel mounting plate for the windscreen wiper assembly was chosen. In this case the coated forming tools were tested using minimal lubrication. Promising results have been obtained particularly with respect to improving tool-life and to achieving an environmentally friendly production process. However to completely dispense with lubrication in the future, it is necessary to coat all tools (e.g. punches, dies) in the production process. Additional tests were also carried out during the forming of aluminium sheet to produce spring plates with the aim to increase tool-life by the use of DLC coating-systems on the forming tool.
11:30 AM		G2-1-10 Characterisation of Inductively Amplified Magnetron Devices Implanted in an Industrial PVD System C. Ducros (Mecachrome, France); V. Benevent, P.J. Juliet, F. Sanchette (CEA Grenoble, France) An inductively coupled RF plasma is used in order to enhance the ionization level of magnetron sputter deposition. The process is based on conventional magnetron sputtering with the addition of a high density, inductively coupled rf plasma generated by a 3-turn coil in the region between the sputtering cathode and the sample. The high ionization fraction induced by i-PVD presents many advantages: a more efficient ion etching in the first step of coating, better properties of coatings can be obtained by the control of ion flux and ion energy. Moreover, a better penetrability of coating on complex geometry substrate and an enhanced chemical reactivity resulting from the separate control of plasma near the substrate and near the target. The system is also equipped with four cathodic arc evaporation sources in order to compare both technologies in terms of reliability and coatings properties. The influence of rf plasma on magnetron discharge current-voltage characteristics was studied. Substrate ion current densities are reported by sputtering aluminium. The influence of an inductively coupled rf plasma on reactive sputtering behaviours have also been investigated with Al-O₂, Ti-N₂ and Ti-O₂ systems. An emission spectroscopic study of the discharges has been performed.
11:50 AM		G2-1-11 Manufacturability of the Copper Electrodeposition Process F.A. Malik, M. Hasan (Emmay Associates, Pakistan) Electroplating has been adopted as the standard method of depositing Copper (Cu) in Multilevel Interconnects. Standard baths are used to deplosit Cu on the wafer which is the negative electrode or cathode. Both Electrowinning (Cu in solution) and Electorefining (Cu in Electrode) circuits are used. Metal depositions are mostly done by Physcial Vapour Deposition (PVD) from high plurity targets in Vaccum. Sputtering systems are relaible and deliver good unifromity. Electrodeposition by contrast is not a fully manufacturable proces. Like the Chemical Mechanical Polishing (CMP) process, the manufacturability aspects of the new deposition approach needs to be addrssed. The deposited Cu then has to go through the CMP process which iteself needs to be improved. The manufacturability aspects of Copper Electrodeposition Process are discussed in details.
12:10 PM		G2-1-12 New Developments in Mechanical Surface Testing P. Alers (CSM Instruments) CSM Instruments (previously CSEM Instruments), will present the latest new developments dedicated to mechanical surface testing. First results will be shown as obtained on the new Nano Tribometer, an instrument which covers the gap which exists between clasical tribometers and AFM based instruments. The second part of the presentation will deal with results obtained with the new Nano Hardness heating stage on copper-berilium spring alloy. The relevance of the results and their innovative value will be discussed.