Submitted Abstract
The demand for PVD coatings combining high wear resistance and oxidation resistance to serve high temperature applications such as dry high speed machining is ever growing. For industrial applications, metastable TiAlN coatings deposited by Cathodic Arc Evaporation are actually the reference due to their excellent mechanical, chemical and thermal properties because of (i) its thermal age-hardening ability of TiAlN, based on an isostructural spinodal decomposition to form cubic Al-rich and Ti-rich domains and (ii) its oxidation resistance of TiAlN coatings with the formation of a bi-layered oxide scale with dense Al2O3 outer-layer and porous TiO2 sub-layer at temperatures until 850°C. CERATIZIT, based in Luxembourg, one of the world suppliers for carbide cutting tools, is actually marketing Arc PVD TiAlN coated products under the trademark HyperCoat. The new tendencies of their customers, the machine shops, are to work in dry conditions (or in agreement with the MQL concept) and the machining of materials as titanium alloys, stainless steel or refractory metals (i.e. Inconel) generates high thermal constraints and reduced the life time of their coated cutting tools. Consequently, there is a real need for developing PVD coatings that are performing better at high temperatures (>850°C) and CERATIZIT and LIST would like to join their competencies and their experimental means through the NANOPIMS project to develop new PVD coatings. For the development of these new high performance coatings, NANOPIMS project will act at three levels: (i) the optimization of the chemical composition, (ii) the engineering of multi-layered for the optimization of resistance to plastic deformation and hot wear resistance, (iii) the use of a new process to optimize the adhesion, the based layer and to minimize the surface defect generation. An improvement of X% for the life time of the coated cutting inserts is targeted.