Increasing the Wear Resistance of Structural Elements of Foundry Tooling

The article discusses the issue of wear resistance of structural elements of technological fixtures used in processes that involve mechanical and thermal stresses on working surfaces. The mechanism of crack formation and growth is presented as one of the main causes of reduced roughness of the working surfaces of technological fixtures, ultimately leading to decreased wear resistance. It has been found that crack growth on the working surfaces depends on the parameters such as crack tip displacement, critical stress intensity factor, maximum principal tensile stresses ahead of the crack tip, and effective yield strength. A theoretically investigated approach to improve wear resistance through the use of a multilayer physical vapor deposition coating with variable hardness, TiCN–TiN–MoN, is proposed. Experimental research on the use of the proposed coatings was conducted based on the pressure die-casting process of zinc alloys, which resulted in an increase in wear resistance of the molds by more than 30% compared to the traditionally used nitriding.