Advanced Heat Treat Corp. (AHT) of Waterloo, Iowa, along with The Ohio State University’s (OSU) Manufacturing Research Group, will receive just over $99,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program and Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC). This grant will be used to research the topic “Plasma Enhanced Nanostructures for Improved Life of Forging Dies.” Forging die failure affects the entire economy of forging companies, including the cost of tooling, repair, press downtimes and production lead times. As such, plasma-enhanced nanostructured surface treatments to increase die life will be explored for the proposed research.

In addition to forging, plasma nitriding is widely used to generate a hard case on engineering surfaces for enhanced performance of many tribological components. This process has found wider applications in advanced surfaces in aerospace and electronics for corrosion protection.

“AHT is grateful for the SBIR grant,” said Mike Woods, AHT’s senior vice president of sales and marketing. “We are looking forward to working with the Ohio State team to develop and bring a new innovation to market. We welcome the opportunity to influence the future of the forging industry.”