Cryogenic treatment to augment wear resistance of tool and die steels

Cryogenic treatment is a supplementary process to conventional heat treatme nt process in steels. It is an inexpensive one time permanent treatment aff ecting the entire section of the component unlike coatings. Though the bene fits have been reported widely, there are issues debated upon, in respect o f the treatment parameters, extent of benefits experienced in different mat erials, underlying mechanism and pretreatment conditions. A study on the im provement in wear resistance and the significance of treatment parameters i n different materials has been made. It is found that cryogenic treatment i mparts nearly 110% improvement in tool life. It is even superior to TiN coa tings. The underlying mechanism is essentially an isothermal process. (C) 2 001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.