Manufacturing technology program to develop a production ion implantation facility for processing bearings and tools

Abstract

A manufacturing technology project to expedite the development and transfer of ion implantation of metals to industrial practice is described. The objective of this project is to develop a prototype production facility to implant several types of aircraft and instrument bearings, and stamping and forming tools to increase their resistance to corrosion and wear and, therefore, increase their lifetime. Research conducted in support of this project to investigate several important design issues is described including beam heating, sputtering at non-normal angles of incidence, calculation of concentration profiles and effect of residual pressure in the vacuum chamber. A major conclusion is that beam heating imposes severe constraints on the beam current density and a high throughput facility requires a diffuse beam and a batch processing mode of operation. Initial estimates of cost savings for several components are presented and are shown to be very favorable.