Research & Development

	Using the latest coating thickness measuring equipment

Tecvac’s R&D team of 5 well qualified and experienced staff work closely with the processing, engineering and sales teams to

1. Maintain Tecvac’s position as a market leader in Advanced Surface Engineering through leading edge Surface Treatment and equipment development including new coatings and new processes.
2. Provide technical assistance for customer back-up, applications development and problems solving.

These aims are achieved through:

• 3 Surface Treatment machines dedicated to full time R&D.
• Fully equipped laboratory including Electron Microscope, X-ray thickness, adhesion testing and CNC machine tool testing.
• Maintaining close collaboration with leading experts in Universities and Government institutions (e.g. the National Physical Laboratory – the home of UK Standards).
• Attending and presenting papers at major international conferences, leading edge workshops and courses.
• Being Industrial Advisors to UK government research programmes.

In-house projects and external, collaborative projects are carried out with UK and European government funding and are often aimed at providing industry with new and improved coatings for more efficient manufacturing. Here, Tecvac works with companies from all walks of industry (including aerospace, automotive, biomedical, tool makers, plastics moulders etc.), Universities and government and private research establishments in the UK, Europe and worldwide.

Tecvac R&D are currently working with Fiat, Airbus and others to develop new coatings for high temperature/ dry cutting in difficult applications such as aerospace alloys.

We have Project Partners in UK, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Romania, Russia, USA, Czechoslovakia, Brazil…….

External-Collaborative Projects, Past:

Brite (EU) RI.1B.0151C(H) Duplex coatings and plasma nitride on Titanium alloys.
Euram(EU) MA1E –0079, Ion implantation of Ti alloys for surgical prostheses.
BP + Hull University - Development and characterisation of Multilayer coatings.
Hull University PhD. EPSRC - Ion Implantation of Titanium Alloys.
IAC Harwell (DTI) - Ion assisted coatings including Diamond-Like-Carbon.
CRAFT (EU) - Project No. CR-1414-91 – Coatings for Cold Forming.
Innovation Project IN 10141D(EU) - Trans-sectorial and Trans-Regional Implementation of Surface Engineering in European Industry.
INFO2000(EU) - STM 5010 “SURFA” Multimedia Information service on Advanced Surface Engineering.
LINK initiative “DEBCOAT” project. (DTI) - Development of Electron Beam PVD coatings with improved composition control.
CRAFT - Project TOMAC BRST-CT98-5378 (EU) - Cold Forming and Blanking Tools Manufacture for Optimal Coatings Performance.

External-collaborative Projects, present:

EUREKA E! 2307 “FUSECOAT” (DTI) - A novel system for high-rate ultra hard coatings.
MSc project - The chemical stripping of CrN from steel.
GROWTH G1RD-CT-2000-00336 “COMING DRY” (EU) - Organic matrix composites and Inconel alloys: Improvements in their machining under low coolant flows and dry conditions.
EUREKA E! 2846 “ AIMTECH” (DTI) - Advanced Injection Moulding Technology.