JPH09143692A - Device for vapor-plating with high vapor pressure metal and vapor plating method using the same - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a device by which highly accurate film thickness, high film-forming rate and a high ratio of film formation from an evaporated metal can be obtained, and accordingly, the ratio of ineffective metal that is stuck to parts other than a material to be treated in the device to the evaporated metal can be reduced and also to provide the method using the device. SOLUTION: In this device, two guide ducts 22 for air-tightly introducing an evaporated metal into a film formation chamber 12 respectively from two evaporation chambers 18, and also, two nozzles 24 with one of which the front end of each of the guide ducts 22 is fitted, are placed. Each of the nozzles 24 is disposed close to the surface of a material 1 to be treated and has a narrowly restricted tip diameter so as to jet the evaporated metal at a high speed. Also, the pressure inside the film formation chamber 12 is maintained at or below the critical pressure, and accordingly, the flow velocity of the evaporated metal at the tip of each of the nozzles 24 is maintained at the sound velocity. Further, guide rolls 14 are disposed so that the material 1 moves upward in the vertical direction and each of the two evaporation chambers 18 is placed opposite to one of the both surfaces of a vertical part of the material 1 and the nozzles 24 for the respective evaporation chambers 18 are disposed so that the evaporated metal is jetted to the both surfaces of the material 1 at its same position.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vapor phase plating apparatus and method for high vapor pressure metal.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For plating high vapor pressure metals such as zinc (Zn) and magnesium (Mg), hot dipping, electroplating, vapor phase plating and the like have been conventionally used. In the hot dip plating, as shown schematically in FIG. 2, a material to be treated (material to be treated 1) is immersed in a molten metal, and is pulled up to solidify the molten metal adhering to the surface to form a coating layer. Is the way. With this method, a relatively thick plating layer can be obtained, but since the film thickness is controlled by the gas pressure injected from the nozzle (gas wiper), the film thickness accuracy is low and noise and vibration due to the gas pressure from the gas wiper are large. However, there is a problem that the processing speed cannot be increased to, for example, 150 m / min or more.

On the other hand, in electroplating, as schematically shown in FIG. 3, a material to be treated (material 1 to be treated) is dipped in a solution containing metal ions, and the material is used as a cathode to form a metal film on the surface of the material. Is a method of electrolytically depositing. This method has a high film thickness accuracy and can perform high-speed processing of about 400 to 500 m / min, but it requires a large amount of power and has a problem of high production cost.

[0004]

Vapor plating has been developed to solve the above problems of hot dipping and electroplating. Vapor plating (or vapor deposition plating)
Is a film forming process in which a metal is heated and evaporated in a vacuum, and the evaporated metal is solidified on the surface of a substrate (steel plate) to form a film.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a conventional vapor phase plating apparatus. In this figure, the material 1 to be treated (for example, a steel plate) is
The guide roller 2 passes through the film forming chamber 3 and vaporizes (films) the evaporated metal supplied from the evaporation chamber 4 on the surface of the material 1 to be processed. Sealing rolls 6 are provided on the upstream side and the downstream side of the film forming chamber 3, and the material 1 to be processed can be continuously passed by the vacuum pump 7 while keeping the inside vacuum. A crucible 8 is installed in the vapor deposition chamber 4, and a vapor deposition metal 5 in the crucible 8 is heated and evaporated by a heater 9, and the vaporized metal is supplied from the vaporization chamber 4 to the film forming chamber 3.

In the conventional vapor phase plating apparatus described above, when plating high vapor pressure metals, the vapor phase gas of the high vapor pressure metals moves to the low vacuum side even if there is a slight pressure difference. There is a problem in that evaporated metal adheres to and condenses in every gap in the vacuum container (film forming chamber) that is shielded from the atmosphere, and cleaning takes a lot of time. That is, high vapor pressure metals (Z
Since vapor molecules of n, magnesium, etc.) have a short free flight distance, they mainly fill the evaporation chamber 4 and the film formation chamber 3 due to diffusion. Therefore, the ratio of the evaporated metal 5 formed on the surface of the material 1 to be processed in the film forming chamber 3 is low, and the adhered metal 5 also adheres to the bearings of the guide roller 2 and the seal roll 6, for example, after one week of operation, about one week , Needed to be cleaned and maintained.

The present invention has been made to solve such a problem. That is, the object of the present invention is to obtain a high vapor pressure metal having a high film thickness accuracy and a high film forming rate, and a high film forming ratio of evaporated metal, which results in a small ratio of ineffective metal adhering to a portion other than the material to be processed. A vapor phase plating apparatus and method are provided.

[0008]

According to the present invention, a film forming chamber whose inside is held in a vacuum, a guide roll for guiding a material to be continuously processed in the film forming chamber, and a vacuum state at an inlet / outlet port of the film forming chamber are provided. In a vapor phase plating apparatus for high vapor pressure metal, which comprises a vacuum sealing device for holding the vapor deposition metal and an evaporation chamber communicating with the film forming chamber for evaporating the evaporated metal, further, the evaporated metal is hermetically sealed from the evaporation chamber to the film forming chamber. A guide duct that guides the guide duct and a nozzle attached to the tip of the guide duct, the nozzle being close to the surface of the material to be treated and being narrowed so as to eject the evaporated metal at high speed. A vapor-phase plating apparatus for high vapor pressure metal is provided.

With the above-described structure of the present invention, since the vaporized metal vaporized in the vaporization chamber collides with the object to be treated with a large kinetic energy by the nozzle attached to the tip of the guide duct, the metal molecules are surely attached to the object to be treated. It is possible to adhere to and condense on, to increase the film forming ratio and reduce the ratio of ineffective metal. Further, since the film formation amount can be controlled by controlling the evaporation amount, the film thickness can be freely controlled only by increasing the moving speed of the material to be processed while keeping the evaporation amount substantially constant. Further, since the ratio of the ineffective metal is small and the film thickness can be easily controlled, the film thickness accuracy and the film forming speed can be simultaneously increased.

According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, the pressure in the film forming chamber is maintained at a critical pressure or less, thereby maintaining a high flow velocity of evaporated metal at the nozzle tip. With this configuration, the ejection speed from the nozzle can be maintained at a constant high speed, the film formation speed can be further increased, the film thickness can be controlled more easily, and the film thickness accuracy and the film formation speed can be further increased.

A guide roll is arranged so that the material to be processed moves vertically upward, two sets of evaporation chambers are arranged so as to face both surfaces of the vertical portion of the material to be processed, and the nozzles of each evaporation chamber are covered. The treatment material is arranged so as to spray the vaporized metal onto both surfaces at the same position. With this configuration, the vaporized metal is sprayed from both sides to the same position in the vertical portion of the material to be treated, so that the impacts of the vaporized metal that collide with the material to be treated can be canceled by each other and alleviated, and the occurrence of vibration is minimized. Can be suppressed to

Further, according to the present invention, while the inlet / outlet is kept in a vacuum state, the material to be continuously treated is vertically passed through the film forming chamber whose inside is kept in a vacuum, and two sets are opposed to each other on both sides thereof. Is provided, and the vaporized metal vaporized in the vaporization chamber is sprayed at high speed on both surfaces of the material to be treated at the same position, and a vapor phase plating method for high vapor pressure metal is provided. By this method, the evaporated metal is sprayed from both sides at the same position of the material to be processed which is vertically passed, so that the evaporated metal evaporated in the evaporation chamber can be collided with the material to be processed with a large kinetic energy. Make sure the molecules adhere to the material to be treated,
The film forming ratio can be increased and the ratio of ineffective metal can be decreased. Further, since the film formation amount can be controlled by controlling the evaporation amount, the film thickness can be freely controlled only by increasing the moving speed of the material to be processed while keeping the evaporation amount substantially constant. Furthermore, since the ratio of ineffective metal is small and the film thickness can be easily controlled,
The film thickness accuracy and the film formation rate can be increased at the same time.

[0013]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. In the drawings, common parts are denoted by the same reference numerals. FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus for high vapor pressure metal according to the present invention. In this figure, the vapor phase plating apparatus 10 of the present invention is shown.
Is a film forming chamber 12 whose inside is held in a vacuum, and a film forming chamber 12
A guide roll 14 that guides the material 1 to be continuously processed, a vacuum sealing device 16 that holds the inlet and outlet of the film forming chamber 12 in a vacuum state, and an evaporation chamber 18 that communicates with the film forming chamber 12 and evaporates the evaporated metal. Is equipped with.

The film forming chamber 12 is formed substantially vertically, and the inside thereof is maintained at a required degree of vacuum by the vacuum pump 7. A pair of guide rolls 14 are provided in the film forming chamber 12 in the vertical direction, and are arranged so that the continuous material 1 to be processed moves vertically upward. In this figure, the vacuum seal device 16 is composed of a seal roll 6 and a vacuum pump 7, and the capacity of the vacuum pump 7 is made larger than the amount of air flowing in from the gap of the seal roll 6 to maintain the degree of vacuum in the film forming chamber 12. It was way,
This is a so-called differential exhaust vacuum sealing device. The present invention is not limited to the vacuum seal device using the seal roll, and may be another type of vacuum seal device.

The evaporation chamber 18 is an airtight container having crucibles 8a and 8b built therein, and two sets of evaporation chambers 18 are arranged so as to face both surfaces of the vertical portion of the material 1 to be processed. Crucible 8
a and 8b respectively contain different vapor deposition metals 5a and 5b. The vapor-deposited metals 5a and 5b are high vapor pressure metals such as zinc (Zn) and magnesium (Mg). A heater 9 is attached to the crucibles 8a and 8b to control the amount of evaporation thereof. Furthermore, the evaporation chamber 1
Another heater 19 is also attached to 8 to keep the metal vapor deposited on the inner surface of the evaporation chamber 18 in a molten state.
The collecting container 20 is provided so as to communicate with the lower end of the collecting container 20. With this configuration, the heater 9 can control the evaporation rate of the vapor-deposited metals 5a and 5b, control the metal ratio in the vaporized metal, and deposit the alloy film on the material 1 to be processed.

The present invention is not limited to the vapor deposition of alloys, and the vapor deposition of a single metal may be performed with one type of crucible in the vaporization chamber 18. Further, in this case, the entire evaporation chamber may be configured as a kind of crucible.

Referring to FIG. 1, the vapor phase plating apparatus 1 of the present invention.
Reference numeral 0 further includes a guide duct 22 that airtightly guides the evaporated metal from the evaporation chamber 18 to the film forming chamber 12, and a nozzle 24 attached to the tip of the guide duct 22. Although the guide duct 22 is formed integrally with the evaporation chamber 18 in this drawing, it may be formed separately and hermetically sealed between them. The nozzle 24 is a so-called tapered nozzle, is narrowed down so as to eject the evaporated metal at a high speed, and has a tip opening that spreads across the width of the material 1 to be processed and is arranged close to the surface of the material 1 to be processed. ing. Further, the two sets of nozzles 24 communicating with the two sets of evaporation chambers 18 are arranged so as to inject the evaporated metal onto both surfaces of the workpiece 1 at the same position.

Further, the vacuum pump 7 keeps the pressure in the film forming chamber 12 below the critical pressure. The critical pressure is the outlet pressure when the outlet Mach number is 1 in the tapered nozzle, and the flow in the nozzle does not change even if the outlet pressure is reduced below this value. Therefore, by keeping the pressure in the evaporation chamber 18 moderately and keeping the pressure in the film forming chamber 12 below the critical pressure, the flow velocity of the evaporated metal at the tip of the nozzle can be maintained at a constant sonic velocity.

The above vapor phase plating apparatus of the present invention is used in the following method. First, the continuous material 1 is vertically passed through the inside of the film forming chamber 12 whose inside is kept vacuum by the vacuum pump 7 while the inlet and outlet are kept in a vacuum state by the vacuum sealing device 16. Next, the vapor deposition metals 5 a and 5 b are vaporized in the two sets of vaporization chambers 18 provided on both sides of the material to be treated 1, and the vaporized metal is passed through the guide duct 22 to the nozzle 24.
The nozzle 24 injects the evaporated metal evaporated in the evaporation chamber 18 onto both surfaces of the workpiece 1 at the same position at high speed.

With the above-described vapor phase plating apparatus and method for high vapor pressure metal of the present invention, the vaporized metal vaporized in the vaporization chamber 18 is treated with a large kinetic energy by the nozzle 24 attached to the tip of the guide duct 22. Since the metal molecules collide with the material 1, the metal molecules can be surely attached to the material 1 to be processed and condensed, and the film formation ratio can be increased and the ratio of ineffective metal can be decreased. In addition, in order to ensure the condensation of the attached metal molecules, the temperature of the material 1 to be treated is preferably kept at a low temperature (for example, room temperature).

In addition, since the amount of film formation can be controlled by controlling the amount of evaporation by the above-described structure, the film thickness can be freely set by increasing the moving speed of the material to be processed 1 while keeping the amount of evaporation almost constant. You can control. Further, since the ratio of the ineffective metal is small and the film thickness can be easily controlled, the film thickness accuracy and the film forming speed can be simultaneously increased.

By maintaining the pressure in the film forming chamber 12 below the critical pressure, the flow velocity of the vaporized metal at the tip of the nozzle is maintained at the sonic speed, and the ejection speed from the nozzle 24 is maintained at a constant high speed. Therefore, it is possible to further increase the film formation rate, facilitate the film thickness control, and further increase the film thickness accuracy and the film formation speed. Further, the guide roll 14 is arranged so that the material 1 to be processed moves vertically upward, two sets of evaporation chambers 18 are arranged so as to face both surfaces of the vertical portion of the material 1 to be processed, and the nozzles of each evaporation chamber 18 are arranged. By disposing 24 so as to spray evaporated metal on both surfaces of the same position of the material to be processed 1, the material to be processed 1
Since the vaporized metal is sprayed from both sides to the same position in the vertical portion, the impacts of the vaporized metals that collide with the material to be processed 1 can be canceled by each other and alleviated, and the occurrence of vibration can be minimized.

It should be noted that the present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiment, and it goes without saying that various modifications can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention.

[0024]

As described above, the vapor phase plating apparatus and method for high vapor pressure metal according to the present invention has high film thickness accuracy and high film forming rate and a high film forming ratio of evaporated metal. It has excellent effects such as a small ratio of ineffective metal adhering to parts other than the material.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of a vapor deposition apparatus for high vapor pressure metal according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of conventional hot dipping.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of conventional electroplating.

FIG. 4 is a schematic view of conventional vapor phase plating.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 material to be treated 2 guide roller 3 film forming chamber 4 evaporation chamber 5 evaporation metal 5a, 5b evaporation metal 6 seal roll 7 vacuum pump 8 crucible 8a, 8b crucible 9 heater 10 vapor phase plating device 12 film formation chamber 14 guide roll 16 vacuum Sealing device 18 Evaporation chamber 19 Heater 20 Recovery container 22 Guide duct 24 Nozzle

 ─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (72) Inventor Motoharu Mohri No. 1 Shin-Nakahara-cho, Isogo-ku, Yokohama-shi, Kanagawa Ishi Kawashima Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. Yokohama Engineering Center

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A film forming chamber whose inside is kept vacuum, a guide roll for guiding a material to be continuously processed in the film forming chamber, a vacuum sealing device for holding a doorway of the film forming chamber in a vacuum state, and film forming A vapor deposition apparatus for high vapor pressure metal, comprising: an evaporation chamber communicating with the chamber for evaporating the evaporated metal; and a guide duct for airtightly guiding the evaporated metal from the evaporation chamber to the film forming chamber; A high vapor pressure metal gas, comprising: a nozzle attached to the tip, the nozzle being close to the surface of the material to be processed and being narrowed so as to spray the evaporated metal at high speed. Phase plating equipment. 2. The vapor phase plating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the pressure in the film forming chamber is maintained at a critical pressure or lower, and thereby the flow velocity of the evaporated metal at the tip of the nozzle is maintained at a high speed. 3. A guide roll is arranged so that the material to be processed moves vertically upward, two sets of evaporation chambers are arranged so as to face both surfaces of a vertical portion of the material to be processed, and a nozzle of each evaporation chamber is covered. The vapor phase plating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the vapor deposition metal is arranged so as to spray vaporized metal on both surfaces of the treatment material at the same position. 4. A material to be continuously processed is vertically passed through a film forming chamber whose inside is held in vacuum while the inlet and outlet are kept in vacuum, and two sets of evaporation chambers are provided so as to face both surfaces thereof. A vapor-phase plating method for high vapor pressure metal, characterized in that the vaporized metal vaporized in the vaporization chamber is jetted at high speed to both surfaces of a material to be treated at the same position.