How Engineered Coating Extend Component Lifetime

August 21, 2019

It is no secret that engineered coatings have many benefits to components, including improving appearance, adhesion, corrosion resistance, hardness and much more. However, in short, the biggest benefit of engineered coating is that it extends the component lifetime.

At Curtiss-Wright, we work with a number of industries including aerospace, oil and gas, automotive, medical and general industrial markets, so ensuring components have their fullest life span is very important.

Our range of engineered coatings protect against adverse environmental and service conditions, preventing friction, improving lubrication and reducing noise.

Our range of industrial engineered coatings include:
• Thermal spray – providing thermal management, corrosion and erosion, component protection and repair of turbine components (including high velocity oxy fuel, flame spray, arc and diffusion.
• Solid film lubricant and liquid component coatings – long lasting lubrication in harsh operating conditions and to prevent friction and galling (including Everlube, PTFE, zine rich, impingement, Teflon, Primers and more)
• Parylene conformal coatings – biocompatible, ultra thin coating used to reduce friction and protect components from the environment, commonly used for medical devices and electronic applications (including Parylene C and Parylene N)

The way our engineered coatings work is simply by fortifying the surface of metals and other substrates – transforming your inexpensive components and parts into super hard, dry lubricated and chemical resistant components. This in turn ensures your components last longer, and is more cost effective than buying expensive components. It is also more environmentally friendly to reuse old materials and components.

As said before, the goal of engineered coatings is to enhance the surfaces of components, imparting performance attributes such as corrosion resistance, hardness and dry lubrication. Surface-enhancing coatings are used to transform inexpensive metal parts into chemical resistant, super hard, dry-lubricated components that last longer and perform better than parts made of expensive and rare metals. Engineered to withstand the harshest of environments.

Coatings are applied to components using an orderly process that begins with a thorough cleaning. Next, applying a coating layer using conversion, deposition, thermal spray or a mix of these techniques enhances the surface. The process continues with a controlled infusion of engineered polymers or other dry-lubricating particles or metals.

The biggest advantage of engineered coatings compared to other options, such as paint-on varieties or black oxide, is that the particles in the engineered coatings become part of the surface. Particles are mechanically bonded and the resulting surface layer cannot chip, flake, peel or rub off. A variety of engineered coating systems are available, each designed and tested to protect a certain metal or to solve a common problem.

Contact the team at CWST to explore our range of Metal Surface Finishing Treatment Processes, we will help you discover which of our specialist treatment is right for your components.