High performence wear protction with bonded coatings containing nano particles

Bonded coatings serve for protecting components made of metal, plastic or elastomer materials against wear and optimize their friction behavior. In many applications, they ensure clean lubrication while offering performance characteristics such as a constant friction coefficient and thermal resistance, corrosion protection, reduced stick-slip and noise, without changing their properties (e.g. due to the influence of oxygen) over many years. In many components bonded coatings offer effective for-life wear protection under a wide range of operating conditions and combinations of loads. Being dry, bonded coatings on friction surfaces are not at risk of running off the friction point or impeding automatic assembly by sticking parts together. Binder systems may be subject to high loads, which can lead to reduced service life. It is desirable for coating abrasion during operation to be as low as possible, while the friction coefficient should remain low as well. While there are a number of known additives to increase the abrasion resistance in bonded coatings, this effect is often attained at the expense of the friction coefficient. Another problem is that at high loads the binder tends to break off abruptly rather than chalk off gradually. It is therefore necessary for high performance applications to increase both the coatings' stress tolerance and their abrasion resistance. At the same time, the friction coefficient has to be prevented from rising significantly. Very finely dispersed nano-particles have proven capable of doing that in numerous tests by increasing the bonded coating's resistance to rupture and abrasion. Bonded coatings containing nano-particles have significantly increased their normal lifetimes without component failure. Numerous measurements conducted on various test rigs showed considerable runtime increases without component failure in both oscillating and continuously moving friction contacts. These results are proof that nano-particles are suitable for use in bonded coatings. It is particularly in high-performance applications that bonded containing nano-particles offer significant benefits in terms of load resistance, economy and service life.