2. Criteria for use

For further details, we refer the reader to the documentation section of this article entitled "Employment criteria".

The properties required of a tool in service depend to a large extent on the conditions under which it is used and the temperature to which its active part can be heated:

• in the case of cold forming processes such as cutting, stamping, rolling, extrusion forging, etc., the surface temperature of the tool generally does not exceed 200°C, and the properties required of the tool are essentially high hardness and toughness, compatible with good mechanical fatigue strength and high wear resistance;

• when it comes to hot forming, which in practice occurs as soon as the temperature of the active part of the tool exceeds 300°C, the properties required of the tooling are high hot hardness...