MISUMITECHNOLOGY

DLC innovative surface technology with outstanding features

The CO2 emissions from cars must drop to 95 grammes per kilometre by 2025, this was already decided by the EU member states in the year 2015. There are some starting points to realise this goal. Firstly of course the switch to electric vehicles, but also the reduction of the overall weight of vehicles plays a major role in the compliance with the limits for CO2 emissions. On average, the body makes up about one third of the total weight of vehicles. A great deal of work and experimentation is currently taking place with composite materials, such as glass or carbon fibre. These materials are currently still very expensive due to the complex manufacturing and processing. Aluminium provides an excellent compromise here between weight and expense and is increasingly being incorporated in body of vehicles. In the manufacture of vehicle chassis made of aluminium, however, there is a problem because the material aluminium does adhere to steel. Due to these manufacturing problems, the individual chassis components cannot be positioned correctly and there are problems in connecting the different frame parts in the body shell. Often production outages are the consequence here, which of course are to be avoided. DLC-coated locating bolts are one solution here.

A DLC (diamond-like carbon) surface coating is produced in a method of chemical (CVD) or physical (PVD) vapour deposition. This happens largely in a vacuum. There these are deposited as thin layers in layer thicknesses of a few micrometres. DLC layers may generally be applied to a variety of different materials. The prerequisite here is that these materials must be compatible with the vacuum required for the production of DLC. In addition, all components to be coated should be electrically conductive. The properties after coating speak for themselves:

- Extreme hardness

- Abrasion resistance

- Low friction coefficient

- Chemical resistance and biocompatibility

Components with DLC coating are used, for example, in automotive technology in the internal combustion engine or in thermoforming, extrusion and forging tools, but also as described above in automotive welding and assembly lines. For the intended purpose of body-in-white production, MISUMI offers DLC-coated locating pins with large or small heads with the following surface properties:

- Good adhesion

- Surface Hardness: ~ 2000 HV

- Surface colour: Black

- Layer thickness: ~ 1 micron

- Friction (steel): 0.1 - 0.2

The service life with DLC-coated locating pins from MISUMI is more than 20,000 cycles in automotive welding and assembly lines compared with a steel pin, which must be replaced after approximately 2,000 cycles. So you save time and money in the future with locating pins from MISUMI!

If you have any questions about surface coatings, simply get in touch with our Technical Support at:

Email: mail.tech@misumi-europe.com

Phone: +49 (0) 6196 7746 499

Fax: +49 (0) 6196 7746 360