IMPROVEMENT IN WEAR CHARACTERISTICS OF STEEL TOOLS BY METAL-ION IMPLANTATION

The annual economic loss induced by wear damage of steel tools is esti mated to be DM 34 billion. Ion implantation is known to be a promising method for improving the wear behaviour of metal surfaces. The effect of nitrogen implantation into steel has been investigated by a number of workers and good results have been obtained for several types of s teel, especially for steel with high chromium content. However, few in vestigations of the effect of metal ion implantation into steel have b een made. We have investigated the effect of metal ion implantation in to high speed steel dies, using high current metal ion beams from a re petitively pulsed vacuum arc ion source. The testing method was, the u psetting, which is comparable to actual forming processes and simulate s the wear strain of the tools used in the metal forming industry. Her e we describe the metal ion implantation facility and the wear testing apparatus and procedure, and discuss the results we have obtained.