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MAJOR PRODUCER OF AEROSPACE FASTENERS MAKES DRAMATIC GAINS BY CHANGING COATING FOR ITS HEADING WIRE
The world's third largest manufacturer of aerospace fasteners has parlayed a pre-tested change in coating for its heading wire into improved part quality, increased productivity and reduced costs. Numbers critical for identification are easy to read on bolts produced with Carpenter Technology Corporation KnightCote coating. The Blanc Aero Industries division of LISI AEROSPACE, which specializes in the manufacture of engine and other critical aircraft parts, has enjoyed these and related benefits while warm forming and heavily extruding 12-point bolts that are standard in GE-90, PW 2000 and comparable aircraft engines. Blanc Aero Industries, in Villefranche de Rouergue, France, has been heading the bolts from coils of Pyromet Alloy 718 (UNS N07718) and Carpenter Waspaloy (UNS N07001) supplied by Carpenter Technology Corporation. The French company makes many thousands of size 1/4" bolts from Pyromet Alloy 718 wire, and similar large volumes in size 3/16" from Waspaloy wire. Typically, the production process for a 12-point fastener consists of several operations including warm forming, extrusion, forging and thread rolling. To facilitate this process, the fastener manufacturer originally used a heavy coating of copper, with an overcoating of MoS2 (molybdenum disulfide) on the heading wire because of the alloys' relatively high work-hardening rates and the severe deformation required. This coating combination, however, produced a host of problems. Variations in coating thickness and poor adherence caused inconsistent heading performance. The coating overload made it difficult, if not impossible to achieve the dimensional tolerances required. Carbide tools broke or wore out prematurely. Under some circumstances, heading machines would break down in the middle of a coil of feed stock, at serious cost in downtime for re-setup and lost productivity. The heavy coating was such a challenge that Blanc Aero Industries had to install a drawer between the coil of feed wire and the heading machine to remove, in a skin pass, some of the excessive coating.
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