Unknown tribological possibilities - Wear resistance for light metals by PEO, hybrid, and laser functionalized surface solutions

Abstract

Facing today's demands on components in general industry, aerospace, automotive, machinery or medical industry, lightweight and a tailored surface might be the right answer to reduce waste in terms of wear or frictional energy losses. PEO, plasma-electrolytical oxidation, remains as an unknown or at least niche surface technology, giving lightweight metals a hard and robust protection shell. Expiring an increasing interest in the research society in the last decade, it is supposed to be a promising candidate for increasing lightweight potential but being not ready for wide industrial applications by being too expensive or applicable only on small parts or series. The CERANOD® PEO surfaces are on the market for over 20 years, applied under different harsh conditions. The CERANOD® -surfaces can withstand high loading by vibrations giving lightweight alloys like Aluminum or Magnesium a very high corrosion and wear protection.Combining the high wear resistance of the PEO surfaces with polymers like doped PEEK, we can achieve low friction and wear in tribological applications without additional lubricants, leading to sustainable systems. Further improvement can be done using laser radiation for patterning and selective laser sintering of the polymer top coating.This work reports on laboratory tribological and wear test results accompanied by SEM and EDS findings for different CERANOD® surface solutions. These findings can be correlated with some different application cases of clients, who utilize these solutions on their end products to enable the usage of lightweight metals under harsh tribological, vibrating and/or corrosive environments, and, thus, saving a lot of energy and resources.