InnerArmor Coatings for the Automotive Industry
The automotive industry faces ongoing challenges to meet fuel efficiency, reliability and cost targets. To help address these challenges, piston rings and other engine components are often coated to combat friction, wear and corrosion. Traditional coatings improve performance in one area, such as wear rate, while offering marginal improvements in other areas. InnerArmor coatings combine strong friction, wear and corrosion performance with the scalability to meet volume requirements of OEM manufacturers.
Similar to traditional Diamond-Like Carbon (DLC) coatings, InnerArmor coatings offer diamond-like properties including high hardness, low coefficient of friction and strong wear resistance. Unlike DLC, the patented InnerArmor process supports consistent internal and external surface protection, very high deposition rates and much thicker coatings without sacrificing performance. Using a patented technique, InnerArmor coatings chemically bond with a variety of base metals to reduce mechanical friction, while protecting against sliding wear and corrosive environments.
Applications
InnerArmor coatings can be applied to a wide range of automotive applications including:
Piston Rings— Friction at the piston and cylinder interface is the source of significant energy loss and heat generation, which leads to reduced power and efficiency. With InnerArmor coatings, piston rings have extremely low friction, a better wear rate and longer life than with traditional coatings like chrome, nitriding and ceramics. 
Cylinder Liners— Ultra-hard InnerArmor coatings completely conform to a cylinder wall for unprecedented low wear rates along with low coefficient of friction to extend life and improve efficiency. Diesel engine cylinder liners gain an additional benefit with protection against the corrosive byproducts present in EGR and other processes.
Other components— Cam shafts, valves, tappets, bearings and dowel pins – to name just a few – will see huge benefits in wear applications due to the high hardness and low coefficient of friction of the InnerArmor coatings. The thin coatings also support tight tolerances required in high performance engines.
Key Benefits
Extended Service Life, Reduced Cost
InnerArmor coatings enable longer life by virtue of their fundamental material properties. An intrinsic chemical inertness allows the coatings to shield inner and outer surfaces from chemical attacks. With exceptional hardness, InnerArmor coatings deliver unprecedented protection while reducing friction and wear to extend component life and improve operational costs. Better wear capabilities also lead to greater reliability, even in non lubricated wear rate applications where dry startup warranty claims are an issue.
Improved Efficiency
The low surface energy of InnerArmor coatings provides a reduced coefficient of friction, so parts slide easily across a near frictionless surface. The net result is improved fuel efficiency due to a reduction in the amount of energy needed to move components. For applications involving reciprocating action—such as pistons moving inside of cylinders—InnerArmor coatings actually create a graphitic interface layer, which produces a self-lubricating effect.
Advantages over traditional DLC coatings
Flexible Coverage— Offering internal and external surface protection, InnerArmor coatings support a wide range of complex shaped components without requiring line-of-sight for the coating process.
Increased Thickness— Unlike traditional thin DLC coatings, InnerArmor coatings support up to 10 times greater thickness without sacrificing physical or mechanical properties for extended component life.
Scalable Process— With a deposition rate up to 30 times faster than traditional DLC, InnerArmor coatings offer an economical process for delivering high-performance DLC coatings.
Result: InnerArmor coatings produce substantial cost savings, both short and longer term.
Rigorous Quality Testing
Before becoming qualified, each InnerArmor coating is subjected to rigorous testing in Sub-One and outside laboratories. This means in-depth measurement of coating thickness, hardness, modulus, toughness, adhesion, wear, coefficient of friction, strain and more. Sub-One laboratories are equipped with state-of-the-art test equipment, and coating properties are measured following ASTM and NACE specifications whenever possible.
To download an InnerArmor Automotive Industry datasheet, click here.