Resistance to thermal fatigue cracking, reduce cavitation effect in die casting dies, Metallife to lower die temperature

Extends Tool Life

Since 1983, Badger Metal Tech, Inc. has had over 100,000 tools passed through our facility. Thermal fatigue, soldering, breakout, gross cracking, and erosion are common failure modes reactively witnessed or proactively anticipated by our customers in the die casting tooling industry.

Soldering, in die casting, is a common mode of failure that occurs when the aluminum covalently bonds to the iron in the steel due to an outer shell electron imbalance in the two element's atoms. What starts as simple adhesion, rapidly deteriorates to a chemical intermetallic reaction between the two which is difficult to remove without destroying some of the base tool steel. Numerous methods to counter this interaction all have one thing in common which is to prevent this interaction. An effective way to do this is to create a barrier between the aluminum and iron.

ThermaLLife is a chemical diffusion process that strengthens steel by diffusing Nitrogen and Carbon atoms into the surface of hot work steels. The diffusion creates a small compressive layer that increases the fatigue strength of the steel and a compound layer that sets up the needed barrier to keep soldering of aluminum to the iron in the steel. Wear and Corrosion resistance are are also improved by the diffusion reaction.

ThermaLLife can be combined with MetaLLife to provide the synergistic benefits of both processes.