Nitriding vs Carbonitriding vs Carburizing of H13 Tool Steel 1

[kingsley47]

I am looking to improve the wear life of some forging dies used at my manufacturing plant. The dies are made of H13 tool steel. I have very little experience with case hardening via chemical absorption and I just wanted to know if anyone had any tips on what I should take into consideration when choosing a surface hardening process. Would one process yield significantly better results than another? Etc...
Any tips would help because when I say I have very little experience in surface hardening I mean I attended one lecture a year ago at an ASM meeting and I remember the basics that I learned in college. So I know enough to be dangerous...
Thanks,

 

[CoryPad]

Nitriding is an option, but the other two usually aren't used for tool steel dies. Other options are chromium electroplating, hardfacing alloys, and cermet and ceramic coating/inserts (WC, TiN).

 

[TVP]

Nitriding of H13 forging tools is very common. Neither of the other processes are used, as CoryPad mentioned. There is a ton of information available on the web regarding nitriding in general, and nitriding of forging tools in specific. Here are some links:

http://www.ahtweb.com/content.php?id=31&t=Technical_Papers

http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/walker.pdf

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images

 

[unclesyd]

If your parts are amenable to this process we got better results on tool steels D2, H11, H13, CrMoVan, etc with the TD (VC-NbC} process versus Nitrided parts, especially the H11.

http://www.richterprecision.com/td-trd-coatings.html

 

[Frederick]

Try cryogenic processing. True cryogenic processing (not cold treating) should give you about double the life.