16_Montenegro-Schmid_d+e

9.9.2009

8:07 Uhr

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ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
Core competencies of Sulzer Metco

Advanced coatings solutions

Sulzer Metco is a world leader in surface technology.
The division serves customers in the aviation-, power
generation-, automotive-, and oil and gas industries,
as well as in industrial markets such as the medical,
print, paper, steel, plastic, and textile industry.
Sulzer Metco focuses on functional surface solutions
and selected manufacturing processes. In addition to
surface solutions services, Sulzer Metco supplies both
advanced equipment and thermal-spray materials.

ulzer Metco provides a whole

range of surface solutions, starting
with substrate surface modifications (no surface layer), thin films (few
m), and thin coatings (few hundreds of
m) to very thick layers (welding, several mm coating thickness). Towards
these surface solutions, Sulzer Metco
supplies both advanced equipment and
systems for thermal spraying, physical
vapor deposition (PVD), and surface
treatment, and the full line of thermal
spray materials as well.
In addition to its equipment and materials business, Sulzer Metco specializes
in thermal spray coating services, thinfilm coating services as PVD and plasmaenhanced chemical vapor deposition and
other surface enhancement services such
as nitriding, nitrocarburizing, and combined processes. These services of Sulzer
Metco add value to customer products
and components by improving performance and reducing life cycle cost.

Components, materials,
and equipment
Sulzer Metco also manufactures specialized components both for the gas turbine
industryfor example air seals for jet
enginesand for the automotive indus-

16 | Sulzer Technical Review 2+3/2009

tryfor example, molybdenum and carbon friction technology for gear boxes.
Furthermore, Sulzer Metco provides
specialized machining services for aero
engines and industrial gas turbine manufacturers, such as laser- or electricaldischarge drilling of cooling holes in
turbine blades.
Committed and experienced people
and focused operational excellence are
one part of Sulzer Metco's successcontinuous innovation and an extensive
R&D pipeline are another. Process controllers, powder feeding devices, and
spray guns belong to the core competencies of Sulzer Metco's Thermal Spray
business unit. The new spray gun
TriplexPro-200 provides a quantum
leap in plasma spray technology because
it provides excellent energy efficiency
and high spray rates combined with
greater deposition performance and
reliability over extended periods of use.
Customers using this technology enjoy
a distinct cost and quality benefit.
Thermal spray material development is
focused on the continued adjustment
of the product portfolio in carbides,
thermal-barrier coatings, and abradables to meet customers' present and
future needs.

Csar Montenegro
Division President of Sulzer Metco

Innovation management with a

unified Stage-Gate process
The new PVD Domino-System Concepta modular PVD systemis the
key to several new PVD coatings with
outstanding properties, for example,
nano-structured coatings. The new coating series from Sulzer Metaplas MAC
(micro-alloyed coatings) is a result of
this development. Diamond-like-coatings are finding more and more interest
in the market thanks to their properties:
high hardness and low coefficient of
friction. Such coatings are applied today
on many automotive parts and windturbine gears.
The unified Sulzer Stage-Gate process is used through the whole innovation cycle. It ensures speed and efficiency in developing new technologies,
products, and services and focuses on
providing lower cost and higher performance to the benefit of our customers.

Csar Montenegro
Division President of Sulzer Metco

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