Purpose: The economical impacts and complexity of tool steels justify the lot of efforts for their development, processing and application. In particular the main goal is the attainment of isotropic microstructures characterised by homogeneous distribution of fine carbide particles and segregation free. The paper offers a review of the Powder Metallurgy tool steels currently manufactured, their properties are discussed with particular regard to their main application and attained performances. Design/methodology/approach: Powder Metallurgy is the way to make the goal, its alloying flexibility allows the production of new tool steels that cannot be made by conventional processes, because of segregation and related hot workability problems. Findings: In practice, through the Powder Metallurgy route it is possible to achieve the highest levels of properties, specifically related to toughness, mechanical behaviour, wear and corrosion resistances of the produced alloys. Research limitations/implications: The use of Powder Metallurgy route allows, through the HIP consolidation from tiny powder particles, to facilitate the production of tool alloy grades able to reach very high performances. Moreover the application of coatings can determin e further advantages. Practical implications: When using thin coatings, like PVD deposited layers, the PM steels more uniformly distributed and fine carbide structure was found to give a clear improvement in the interface quality of the relative coated systems. Conversely, the less uniform traditional steels carbide distribution resulted in a less continuous contact between the substrate and the coating. Originality/value: The paper demonstrate the superior value and perfomances of PM tool steels and their better adaptability to PVD coatings. In particular, cold working, plastics and high speed applications are the main interested and advantageously affected by the uniqueness of PM tool steels. Some comparison between equivalent traditional and PM tool steel grades are presented.
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