| AVS 66th International Symposium & Exhibition | |
| Advanced Surface Engineering Division | Thursday Sessions |
| Session SE-ThA |
| Session: | New Challenges and Opportunities in Surface Engineering |
| Presenter: | Esteban Broitman, SKF - RTD - Research & Technology Development Center, Netherlands |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Machines with rotating components usually rely on bearings to reduce friction in moving its parts around a fixed axis. The increasing demand for more precise bearings to lower power consumption and heat generation, while simultaneously support increasing applied loads and/or higher speeds, has given place to the use of surface engineering processes.
In the case of bearings, it is widely accepted the advantages of using coatings as the surface process to improve its performance. During the last three decades, advanced coatings have enjoyed a growing interest in several industrial applications because they can be engineered to provide different properties like electrical insulation, low friction, and resistance to corrosion, surface initiated rolling contact fatigue, abrasive wear, and plastic deformation. The main surface engineering processes to deposit these coatings include traditional technologies such as dipping and liquid spraying, chemical conversion, galvanizing and electroless processes, as well as more sophisticated technologies such as thermal spraying, physical vapor deposition, diffusion, and ion implantation. However, the special characteristics of the bearing steel and the need to limit the deposition costs reduce the number of methods that can be practically used.
In this talk I will first introduce the four main areas where coatings can contribute to improve the performance of bearings made of standard bearing steel: lower friction, decreased wear, corrosion resistance, and electrical insulation. For each area I will review which coatings are industrially used, their possible industrial deposition methods, and their main mechanical and tribological properties. Examples of SKF coatings used to extend maintenance and life expectancy of specialized bearings will be described, like NoWear® (carbon-based nanostructured coating), Black Oxide (iron oxide conversion film), INSOCOAT® (aluminum oxide coating), and manganese phosphate films. I will finish the presentation visioning which the (near)-future needs of specialty surface-treatment coatings are in response to bearing application challenges, including a novel fifth area of sensorized coatings.