Wear Resistance

All of the thermal spray and cladding processes (flame spray, arc spray, plasma spray and High Velocity Oxy Fuel plus laser cladding) are commonly used to apply wear resistant coatings and the selection of the equipment used will depend on many factors and Metallisation will be pleased to help you select the correct solution.

Materials used are also variable and depend on the application.  For example, a simple arc sprayed coating of Iron Chrome Boron (FeCrB) may be suitable as a hard-chrome replacement on a hydraulic cylinder on a piece of agricultural equipment.  However, in the much harsher application of a valve used when pumping crude oil, the industry would favour a Tungsten Carbide Cobalt Chrome coating applied by HVOF.  This coating has approximately 10x more wear life than a typical hard-chrome plate coating and performs very well against corrosion too.

It's very common to apply hard wearing steel or stainless steel coatings to softer steel substrates or even molybdenum coatings for sliding wear applications such as piston rings or gear selector forks.

Above is a video that we extracted from our archives.  Although very old, it demonstrates the long and trusted pedigree of thermal spray coatings in wear resistant applications.  Many of these processes and coatings are still in use today as well as enhanced processes like laser cladding.