Evaluation of the Chromium Carbide Deposited by HVOF for High Pressure Die Casting Molds

Abstract The demand for energy reduction increases every year. In general, reducing the weight of mechanical components is a direct and efficient way to reduce the energy consumption. Therefore, the automotive industry has been growing its use of low-density alloys, as the cases of aluminum and magnesium. High production rate and dimensional precision are need, which narrows the manufacturing techniques suitable. Among the manufacturing processes, high pressure die casting (HPDC) has shown a viable solution. Nonetheless, every process has gaps for improvement. In the case of HPDC tooling is one of the major costs, being responsible for a significant ratio of the final product price. Whereas many articles are focused on the improvement by the development of new materials and thin coatings for HPDC, there is a lack of thermal spray coatings as solution for the wear problems over HPDC. This paper has the focus on showing the use of Cr3C2 25 NiCr as a coating for the components used for HPDC, mainly the ones submitted to direct contact to the metal in fluid state. The idea is to compare the coating with the substrate regarding to thermal fatigue and verify whether it is a viable solution or not.