Dry Film Lubricant Coatings
Dry film lubricants are used to reduce friction and wear between moving parts such as sliding surfaces, without using liquid lubricants like grease or oil.
They are typically added to components used in challenging applications, where traditional lubricants can fail, such as extreme temperature, high moisture, and vacuum environments. In contrast, dry film lubricants remain stable and continue to offer continuous protection.
Popular applications include gears and pistons in the automotive sector, fasteners, couplings and bearings, switchgear, shears and scissors.
Several Anotec coatings now have dry film lubrication built-in.
How Dry Film Lubricants Work
Dry film lubricants work by creating a solid, thin layer on surfaces to reduce friction between moving parts.
High-performance dry film lubricants combine the functionality of fluorocarbons with engineered organic materials, such as polyesters and epoxies. The resulting product is ideal for a range of domestic, industrial and automotive applications.
The most commonly known dry film lubricant is Teflon®, which creates a non-stick surface on cookware. In low friction coatings, an additive is uniformly dispersed throughout the coating, enabling it to function despite wear.
Benefits of Dry Film Lubricants
- Reduced friction and added lubricity between sliding surfaces, so reducing wear and extending lifespan.
- Excellent torque control characteristics for fasteners.
- Reduced noise, due to the smoother movement or flow of parts together.
- Reduced heat build-up in moving parts
How Dry Film Coating is Applied
Dip Spin
The dip spin process involves placing the parts into a perforated basket. The basket is then submerged into a tank containing the coating material. This is then spun at high speed to expel excess material.
A planetary motion or ‘tilts’ mechanism is employed, to re-orientate the parts during the spinning cycle. This releases coating material that would otherwise be trapped in recesses. This reduces infill required in a standard dip spin coating process.
Automatic Spraying
Parts can be automatically sprayed using CNC-programmed robotic equipment. This may incur initial investment in bespoke tooling.
Manual Spraying
Processing parts manually generally avoids capital outlay on bespoke tooling.
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