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，制造业继续保持着巨大的前景。由于处于劳动力成本较高的地区，加拿大工业必须在先进制造设备上进行大量投资，才能具有竞争力。在这种庞大的设备资本基础上，工具发挥着重要的作用，因为它往往决定着生产率水平，影响成本和质量，在许多情况下还限制了可以加工的材料类型。涂层通过提供额外的磨损保护和润滑性，极大地提高了模具的性能。作为我之前发现资助的一部分，我们开发了一种新型的纳米多层TiAlCrSiYN/TiAlCrN PVD涂层，用于加工难加工材料。这种发展是基于通过形成润滑性和保护性的摩擦膜来提高涂层适应其条件的能力。这项拟议的研究计划的主要目的是更好地了解这种改进背后的摩擦膜形成机理，并利用这些知识开发新一代适应性表面工程解决方案，以形成针对应用的特定要求而量身定做的保护和润滑摩擦膜。这项研究的主要影响将是更深入地了解保护和润滑摩擦膜是如何在工具的使用寿命内生成和保持的，以及它们在减少摩擦和磨损方面所起的作用。这些方面将通过改变涂层成分和微观结构、使用离子注入和细微粒子轰击技术以及选择性工件合金化来探索。应用这些技术的目的是为了产生所需的初始表面条件，以便更好地适应刀具，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。鉴于摩擦膜本质上非常脆弱，将开发创新的样品制备技术，以更好地保存极硬刀具材料上的摩擦膜。这些将被用来确定摩擦膜的化学成分和结构，包括它与工具衬底的结合的性质以及它随时间的演变。这些信息将与摩擦性能以及特定刀具、工件和环境组合的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。在详细的实验室测试之后，表面处理将在我们的工业合作伙伴的现场进行生产测试。这一合作将我们的学术研究与加拿大制造业直接联系起来，并将导致新解决方案的快速采用。从这项研究中获得的知识将通过开发能够承受与高性能机械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机械加工操作的生产率。刀具界面润滑性的改善将通过减少因不良切屑形成和流动而产生的表面和亚表面损伤来提高质量。预期较长的工具寿命将降低每个零件的工具成本，以及与安装、更换工具和跟踪偏移量相关的低附加值体力劳动的数量。总体而言，这些改进代表着显著的竞争优势，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.