General Engineering

Protection from material failures

Metal and material surface treatments can extend the performance characteristics by protecting the surface from operating damage and cyclic loads.

These treatments have undergone laboratory and field testing to ensure reliability in extreme conditions to deal with the following failure modes:

• Fatigue
  The initiation and growth of cracks can be controlled by the tailored application of sustainable residual compressive stresses
• Galling
  The adhesion of opposing surfaces when in contact can be minimised by protective coatings and shot peening where changes in material properties in the near surface area can extend performance
• Fretting
  Fretting damage can lead to fretting fatigue which can be minimised by the protection of the base material through coatings and/or alteration of the mating surface contact points and comparatively deep residual compressive stresses
• Stress corrosion cracking
  The removal of surface tensile stresses or reduction below threshold levels can eliminate stress corrosion cracking
• Corrosion
  Protection of the surface by coating perhaps in combination with deep residual compressive stresses is essential to minimise potential failures
• Wear
  Wear can be lessened by reducing friction characteristics, increasing lubricity and/or increasing or altering mating hardness.

Applications

• Aerospace: wing skins, ribs, spars, stringers, brackets and fasteners, turbine and compressor blades, blisks, blums, shafts, gears, undercarriage and actuator systems for most OEM’s and on-site MRO processing worldwide
• Architectural: Peentex surface finishes for decorative and corrosion resistant purposes
• Automotive (including autosport): gears, shafts, circlips, crankshafts, connecting rods, valves, pistons, piston rings, fasteners, cam shafts, cylinder heads and blocks, compression, tension and leaf springs and uprights
• Chemical Processing: storage tanks, pressure vessels, pumps and valves
• Marine: turbine blades, gears, shafts and welded assemblies
• Medical: prosthetics, stents and similar implanted products requiring perfect sealing of metal/material against the human body
• Off Road/Earth moving equipment: buckets, pins and welded assemblies
• Oil, Gas & Mining: drilling equipment - drill collars, stabilizers, drill bits; measurement while drilling (MWD) equipment; storage vessels, pipes and welded assemblies
• Power Generation: nuclear, steam and gas turbine buckets, blades and shafts
• Railway: axels, gears, shafts and welded assemblies
• General Engineering: gears, stamping dies, presses, welded structures i.e. bridges, decorative and corrosion resistant architectural finishes