Adaptive Surface Engineering of High Performance Manufacturing Tooling

制造业是加拿大经济的重要组成部分，随着全球经济增长推动对制成品的需求，制造业继续保持相当大的前景。加拿大工业处于劳动力成本高的地区，为了保持竞争力，必须在先进的制造设备上进行大量投资。模具在这个庞大的设备资本基础的有效性方面发挥着重要作用，因为它通常决定生产力水平，影响成本和质量，并且在许多情况下限制了可以加工的材料类型。涂层已被证明可以通过提供额外的磨损保护和润滑性来大大提高刀具的性能。作为我以前的发现资助的一部分，开发了一种新型的纳米多层TiAlCrSiYN/TiAlCrN PVD涂层，用于加工难以切割的材料。该开发基于通过形成润滑和保护性摩擦膜来增强涂层适应其条件的能力。这项研究计划的主要目的是更好地了解这种改进的基础摩擦膜形成机制，并利用这些知识开发新一代自适应表面工程解决方案，这些解决方案可根据应用的具体要求形成保护性和润滑性摩擦膜。这项研究的主要影响将是更深入地了解保护性和润滑性摩擦膜是如何在工具的使用寿命中产生和维持的，以及它们在减少摩擦和磨损方面所起的作用。这些方面将探索通过改变涂层成分和微观结构，并通过使用离子注入和微粒轰击技术，以及选择性工件合金化，例如。这些技术将被应用，目的是产生所需的初始表面条件，以有利地适应工具，并在磨损的初始磨合阶段激活摩擦化学反应。这一点很重要，因为磨合阶段对整体磨损行为有很大影响。鉴于摩擦膜的性质非常脆弱，将开发创新的样品制备技术，以更好地保护极硬刀具材料上的摩擦膜。这些将用于建立摩擦膜的化学组成和结构，包括其与工具基材的结合性质及其随时间的演变。这些信息将与特定刀具、工件和环境组合的摩擦特性、磨损率和磨损机制相关联。一旦开发出有益的表面处理，将进行详细的优化研究，以建立充分利用摩擦膜有益特性的机器操作条件。经过详细的实验室测试后，表面处理将在我们的工业合作伙伴的工厂进行生产测试。这种合作为我们的学术研究与加拿大制造业提供了直接联系，并将导致快速采用新的解决方案。从这项研究中获得的知识将通过开发能够承受与高性能加工和新的难切削合金相关的极端操作条件的解决方案来提高加工操作的生产率。刀具界面处润滑性的改善将通过减少由不良切屑形成和流动产生的表面和次表面损伤来提高质量。预期更长的工具寿命将降低每个零件的工具成本，以及与设置和更换工具以及跟踪偏移相关的低附加值手工劳动量。总的来说，这些改进代表了显著的竞争优势，将推动加拿大制造业的增长。

Manufacturing is an important part of the Canadian economy and continues to hold considerable promise as global economic growth drives the demand for manufactured goods. Being in a high labour cost region Canadian industry has had to make significant investments in advanced manufacturing equipment in order to be competitive. Tooling plays an important role in how effective this large capital base of equipment is as it often sets the productivity level, impacts cost and quality and in many cases limits the types of materials that can be processed. Coatings have been shown to greatly enhance the performance of tooling by providing added wear protection and lubricity.As part of my previous Discovery Grant, a novel nano-multilayered TiAlCrSiYN/TiAlCrN PVD coating was developed for machining hard to cut materials. This development was based on enhancing the ability of the coating to adapt to its conditions by forming lubricious and protective tribofilms. The main purpose of this proposed research program is to better understand the tribofilm formation mechanisms which underlie this improvement and use this knowledge to develop a new generation of adaptive surface engineered solutions which form protective and lubricious tribofilms tailored to the specific requirements of the application. The major impact of this research will be to develop a deeper understanding of how protective and lubricious tribofilms are generated and sustained over the life of a tool and the role they play in reducing friction and wear. These aspects will be explored by altering coating composition and microstructure and by using ion implantation and fine particle bombardment techniques as well as selective workpiece alloying, for example. These techniques will be applied with the aim of generating the initial surface conditions needed to favourably adapt the tool and activate the tribo-chemical reactions during the initial running-in stage of wear. This is important as the running-in stage has a big impact on overall wear behaviour.Given that tribofilms are very delicate in nature, innovative sample preparation techniques will be developed to better preserve the tribofilms on the extremely hard tool materials. These will be applied to establish the chemical composition and structure of the tribofilms, including the nature of its bond with the tool substrate and its evolution over time. This information will then be correlated to friction properties, as well as wear rates and wear mechanisms for specific tool, workpiece and environment combinations.Once beneficial surface treatments are developed detailed optimization studies will be performed to establish the machine operating conditions which fully exploit the beneficial properties of the tribofilms. Following detailed laboratory testing the surface treatments will be tested in production at our industrial partners’ sites. This collaboration provides a direct link of our academic research to the Canadian manufacturing industry and will lead to quick adoption of the novel solutions. The knowledge gained from this research will enhance the productivity of machining operations by developing solutions able to withstand the extreme operating conditions associated with high performance machining and new difficult to cut alloys. The improved lubricity of at the tool interface will enhance quality by reducing the surface and subsurface damage generated by poor chip formation and flow. The longer tool life expected will reduce tooling cost per part as well as the amount of low value added manual labour associated with setting up and changing tools and tracking offsets. Collectively these improvements represent a significant competitive edge that will drive growth in Canadian manufacturing.