Diffusion forming of hard carbide layer on tool surface

Development of process of diffusion forming of carbide layers that is more and more widely applied with a target to increase wear resistance of structural components and tooling has been reported. Diffusion coating with carbide layers has advantage over the deposition coating processes because of lower process costs. Thicker layers of higher hardness can be produced than ones applied using PVD process. Some examples of diffusion vanadizing for certain types of tools have been presented, as well as the limitations, mostly related to larger dimension changes than in the case of application of PVD processes.