THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

A Tale of Two Shops – 14

Energy Coatings Go Green with Nanostructures – 20

Solving Laser Oxide Issues in Liquid Coatings – 24

The Cleaning Process and Equipment Relationship – 30

MARCH 2016 / VOLUME 80 / NO. 6

PLATING

ENERGY

CLEANING

LIQUID

A Tale of Two Shops

Machine Tool Shop Buys and Integrates a Nadcap

Finishing Operation

A property of Gardner Business Media

PFonline.com

PRODUCTS FINISHING — PFonline.com 11 THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

NEWS

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BASF Wins 2015 Nissan AwardBASF Automotive Coatings received the

Nissan “Spirit of Monozukuri” award at

the annual automotive supplier confer-

ence in Franklin, Tennessee. The award

recognizes suppliers who contribute an

outstanding commitment to improved ef-

fciencies and total cost savings to Nissan.

“BASF’s collaboration with Nissan has

resulted in a strong relationship where

we both have a true win-win,” says BASF

Business Manager Bill Kosteniuk, whose

company began supplying coatings to

Nissan in 2013 and currently provides

coatings for the models Rogue, Pathfnd-

er and Infnity QX60.

For information, please visit

basf-coatings.com.

Hardide Coatings Opens US Facility in VirginiaHardide Coatings Inc. (Martinsville,

Virginia) has opened its new Virginia pro-

duction facility. The company invested

up to $7 million in Martinsville to expand

its production operations to North

America in January last year. The facility

is expected to create as many as 29 jobs

over the next three years.

This expansion has been driven by

increased demand from North Ameri-

can customers, with sales to the U.S.

and Canada more than doubling last

year. The 26,000-square-foot facility in

Martinsville-Henry County will service

existing and new customers for the com-

pany’s range of hard-wearing tungsten-

carbide coatings in the oil and gas, and

fow control markets. In addition, the

company also plans to expand in the

aerospace and advanced engineering

sectors, and develop applications for its

diamond coating.

For information, please visit

hardide.com

BY TRACY FAIRCHILD VELAN

For gas and oil valves, Velan

adopts Hardide coating.

Energy Coatings Go Green

with Nanostructures

A Velan ball is measured on Hardide’s

coordinate measuring machine.

20 MARCH 2016 — PFonline.com THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

PLATING

Since its commencement in 1950, Velan has been pushing to

find new designs and technologies to produce high-perfor-

mance valves. In more recent years, the Montreal manufac-

turer has been called upon to find solutions to technological

challenges that are friendly to the environment, but still cost

effective. One of those solutions is an alternative to a tried and

trusted valve industry tool—hard chrome plating (HCP)—

which is now under strict environmental regulation.

Velan’s solution after very tough scrutiny and consideration:

nanostructured coatings.

“Our products are optimized to provide customers with

quality, safety, ease of operation, long service life and low total

cost of ownership,” says Luc Vernhes, corporate manager for

Product Innovation and Technology. “‘Quality that lasts’ is not

just our tagline; it’s what we put into each valve.”

Results of a steam endurance test (600 psig at 600°F, 1

cycle/minute) performed on a 3-inch Class 300 Type M

metal-seated ball valve.

0

1,000

2,000

3,000

4,000

5,000

6,000

7,000

8,000

9,000

10,000

Hard chrome plated ball

Stellited seats

Hardide coated ball

Stellited seats

Nu

mb

er

of

diff

ere

nti

al p

ress

ure

cy

cle

s

up

to

fa

ilu

re (

i.e

., s

ea

t le

ak

)

PRODUCTS FINISHING — PFonline.com 21 THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

ENERGY COATINGS GO GREEN

Vernhes says that Hardide coatings extend the life of critical

components across a wide range of high-wear/high-value

industries and applications, including oil and gas, aerospace,

defense, petrochemicals and motorsports. Applications

include downhole tools, control valves, cylinders, rotors,

pistons, pins, landing gear, turbine blades and many flow

control components.

Over the years, Velan provided valves with tungsten-

carbide-based CVD coatings for demanding applications in

which the standard HCP coating was not suitable, especially

in corrosive and erosive environments common in the petro-

chemical sector, where metal-seated ball valves protected

by HCP were wearing prematurely. Velan collaborated with

Dealing with REACHInnovation is only one key motivator for the company. Another

is how to deal with REACH regulations on HCP in Europe,

which are similar to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health

Administration controls on HCP and will be enacted here in

2017. HCP has been used in the valve industry for many years

because it provides excellent hardness and resistance to corro-

sive environments, and it offers easy application and low cost.

After reviewing several alternatives, Velan identified

nanostructured chemical vapor deposition (CVD) coatings

as the best replacement for HCP. In tests, the nanostructured

coatings performed better than HCP for sliding, wear, scratch,

adhesion, toughness and corrosion testing in saltwater envi-

ronments. A comparison of relative costs reveals that the

nanostructured coatings kept also pace with HCP in regards

to economy of scale, and when large volume and pre- and

post-coating operations are in effect.

In 2007, Vernhes contacted Hardide Coatings, a United

Kingdom innovator of low-temperature CVD tungsten

carbide-based coatings, and expressed interest in testing the

coating as a hard chrome replacement.

Hardide’s Dan Wilson and Robin Gillham worked with

Vernhes for many years, and a relationship grew from basic

coupon and material testing to production qualification at

companies in the petrochemical and power sectors.

New U.S. PlantMeanwhile, Hardide opened a new $7 million manufacturing

plant in Virginia that will help the company roll out its range

of nanostructured coatings across North America.

Known informally

as “fish bowls,”

these Velan balls

and seats feature

prominently in the

top-entry ball valve

design.

22 MARCH 2016 — PFonline.com THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

PLATING

and frequent operation. After reviewing available materials, it

was determined that the Hardide technology could be applied

to all internal components without disrupting the precise

geometry that the triple-offset valve requires to maintain tight

shut-off. The subject valves now have been in service for more

This micrograph shows the Hardide coating on austenitic

stainless steel.

the end user to clearly assess what was causing the prema-

ture failure, and the company then selected the tungsten-

carbide-based CVD coating as the most suitable alternative

material. Since then, metal-seated ball valves provided

with this coating have been installed in particularly severe

service applications and have performed to satisfactory

results while radically increasing time between failures.

Velan also uses tungsten-carbide-based CVD coatings for

industries that cannot support plating processes, such as

certain nuclear power plants. In those applications, Velan

traditionally offered alternative wear-resistant materials to

protect severe-service metal-seated ball valves, but these

coatings provided either lower cycle life or higher cost than

conventional HCP. Velan now recommends tungsten-carbide-

based CVD coatings.

CVD Successes

“Velan has also successfully used the CVD tungsten-carbide

based coating on all wetted trim parts of the Torqseal triple-

offset butterfly valve for severe service applications,” says

Craig Bekins, Velan product manager for triple offset valves.

“Without Hardide, this would not have been possible.”

The company says the most notable case was an application

that included a combination of dry hot media along with fast

Excellence forindustrial coating.

Stay informed with

the WAGNER Industrial

Newsletter!

www.wagner-group.com/wsi/

www.wagnersystemsinc.com

800-473-2524

info@wagnersystemsinc.com

PRODUCTS FINISHING — PFonline.com 23 THE VOICE OF FINISHING80 YEARS

ENERGY COATINGS GO GREEN

than two years and

through thousands

of cycles.

Velan worked

with Polytechnique

Montreal University

on a research

paper in the journal

“Materials Chemistry

and Physics” entitled

“Alternatives for hard

chrome plating: Nanostructured

coatings for severe service valves”

and is partnering again with the university to develop novel

combinations of overlay layers with the Hardide coating.

Vernhes is in charge of this area of research and development,

which is designed to demonstrate the synergy between hard-

facing materials and nanostructured films.

“In this study, we want to characterize graded coating

systems composed of two things: a thin top layer that provides

superior sliding wear properties, and a hard-facing interlayer

that reduces stresses between the top layer and the soft base

material,” Vernhes says.

The hard-facing interlayer minimizes stresses and elimi-

nates the risk of indenting or breaking the thin hard top

layer—the so-called “eggshell-effect”—which increases the

load-carrying capacity of the overall coating system.

“While we’re in the early days of research for this project,

some multi-layer, hybrid-graded coating systems have

already demonstrated sliding wear and mechanical perfor-

mances that greatly exceed those of the standalone surface

treatments,” he says.

By working with Hardide Coatings and conducting indepen-

dent research, he says Velan “has been able to identify a cost-

effective, off-the-shelf coating with the potential to fully replace

hard chrome on our severe service applications.” 80

Tracy Fairchild is director of marketing communications at

Velan. For information, visit velan.com or hardide.com, or

email chris.oettel@velan.com.

Velan’s Torqseal triple-

offset butterfly valve

features a CVD tungsten-

carbide-based coating

on all wetted trim

parts for severe service

applications.

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