Increasing the lifespan of high-pressure die cast molds subjected to severe wear

In this study, two molds with typical severe wear problems were selected and the wear mechanisms involved were deeply studied. After that, a careful selection of the best coating for this purpose was done and some of the most critical parts of the mold were coated in order to test possible effective advantages of the coating application, analyzing the wear resistance behavior and wear mechanisms involved. In parallel, tribological tests were also carried out in order to study if a correlation between laboratory and industrial tests can be drawn. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy were intensively used to characterize the coatings and the wear mechanisms observed. Laboratory tribological tests have involved ball scattering and block-on-ring tests, trying to impose low and medium loads on the contact, respectively. Promising results were obtained allowing conclude that certain coatings present a better behavior than other ones in this field of application.