Goal:

To develop and demonstrate soldering-resistant coatings using high-density infrared
(HDI)/plasma arc processing and to develop surface coating techniques and treatments
to prevent heat checking using HDI surface hardening.

Accomplishments:

• Coating materials (WC, Cr2C3, TiN) were selected based on thermodynamic analyses
  and deposited on H-13 steel.
• Samples Coated with WC, Cr2C3 and TiN coatings performed more
  than 3 times better than the uncoated sample.
• A Boron coating deposited using a cathodic vacuum arc technique demonstrated
  no wetting during testing in molten aluminum, as predicted from thermodynamics analysis