Increasing the Durability of Pressure Dies by Modern Surface Treatment Methods

The objective of this work was to select the optimum technological surface layer for casting cores and ejector pins used in pressure dies in the process of casting aluminum alloys. The controlled measurements of: microhardness, wear and friction coefficients, internal stress distribution, as well as superposition of internal and real stress, resulting from computer simulation of the casting process, were performed for each sample. In order to experimentally determine the influence of the selected treatment methods on the state of stress of the material, the selected material and technological solutions were tested under service conditions. The optimal surface treatment, both from the point of view of durability and cost-effectiveness, was obtained in the case of multiplex technologies including sulfonitriding treatment followed by the deposition of a novel low-friction MoS2(Ti,W) coating or economical FineLPN vacuum nitriding followed by TiN coating deposition.