Surface-treatments Channel

Applications and design considerations of anodising

Monday, November 10, 2014
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Although anodising can be applied to a few other metals, the vast majority of applications in motorsport will be on aluminium. This is a reflection of the popularity of aluminium in the construction of race engines and transmissions, and the fact tha... read more

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Acid pickling and etching

Tuesday, September 30, 2014
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The use of strong acids is commonplace in industry in the manufacture of many components, and they have a number of purposes that might be useful in the context of race engines and transmissions. Although not widely used for this purpose, there are ... read more

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Vibratory finishing applications and parameters

Monday, August 18, 2014
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This time last year I wrote an article talking about the basics of vibratory finishing but did not mention many applications, and without writing about the specific instances where we might want to use low- or high-energy processes. In this article t... read more

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Some processing details about carburising

Wednesday, July 09, 2014
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The carburising process has found very wide use in motorsport as well as the wider engineering industry. It provides a hard surface on a tough core, and puts the surface of the component into a state of residual compressive stress, which we know have... read more

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Nitriding

Thursday, May 08, 2014
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Many of us who have been involved in designing components for race engines will be familiar with the nitriding process, and even if the process isn't very familiar in its detail, we probably know what its benefits are. It is also likely that we will ... read more

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Peening variations

Thursday, March 27, 2014
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Shot peening is a well known process that is used widely as a reaction to fatigue failures and as a design tool to avoid them in the first instance. The choice of whether to use peening as a ‘curative’ or a ‘preventative’ trea... read more

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Phosphating

Wednesday, February 19, 2014
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Phosphate coatings have been covered in a couple of previous surface treatment articles. In the first of these articles, we looked mainly at engine applications, including piston rings, camshafts and so on. In the second article, we looked in slightl... read more

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Chromating applications

Wednesday, January 08, 2014
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It would be wrong to say that conversion treatments such as chromating aren’t used in race engines, but they certainly aren’t used as widely as on race transmissions. One of its main uses in engine parts is the passivation of components w... read more

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Hard anodising

Monday, December 02, 2013
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Where aluminium components might be subjected to wear in a race engine or transmission, hard anodising is often specified as a surface treatment. This process converts the existing surface to a thick oxide structure; the main difference between decor... read more

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Chemical machining

Monday, October 07, 2013
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Chemical machining is a technique that removes material through the interaction between chemicals and a metallic workpiece. Electrochemical machining (also widely referred to as ECM) offers an alternative to electro-discharge machining (EDM) and is s... read more

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