CORPUS-CHRISTI ARMY DEPOT ION IMPLANTER - CAPABILITIES AND CAPACITIESFOR INDUSTRIAL APPLICATIONS

The features and initial results obtained from using a large-scale pro duction, non-mass-analyzed ion implanter installed at the Corpus Chris ti Army Depot (CCAD) in September 1994 will be discussed, The ISC-5000 ion implanter (Implant Sciences Corporation, Wakefield, MA) is the la rgest non-semiconductor implanter in the USA. This machine has been de voted to the treatment of cutting tools and other critical components of interest to the US Army. The ion implanter is a fully automated use r-friendly machine. Its large-diameter (0.762 m) target platen allows the simultaneous processing of up to 500 tooling inserts of various sh apes and sizes in one batch, The following types of cutting tool and m aterial have been ion implanted with nitrogen: (1) both TiN coated and uncoated cutting tools of WC (Co) and high speed steel, which include cutting tools such as inserts, reamers, end mills and taps, and (2) C r-plated specimens of copper-based material. The coated WC cutting too ls were tested for the machining of high nickel alloys and show an ave rage of 30% tool life improvement over non-ion-implanted TiN inserts. This performance improvement in conjunction with the large tool-volume -processing capacity make the CCAD machine economical to operate and h ave provided actual hardware demonstrations of the benefits of the ion implantation process.