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The Win-Win Scenario for Titanium Machining Combine top of the line cutting tools and state of the art machine tools, both optimized for machining titanium, and you have a win-win scenario that will give you a superior edge in manufacturing high temp alloys. Sandvik Coromant has released new tools that are designed and optimized for titanium machining. When applied with state of the art machine tools, a manufacturer can achieve a substantial increase in productivity and decrease their manufacturing costs. The technology now exists to allow manufacturers to move away from the conventional cutting tool approach more confidently when machining high temp materials like titanium. Before the current downturn in the economy, manufacturers were investing heavily in high tech modern machine tools equipped with stronger simultaneous fit spindle interfaces, high torque spindle motors, 5 axis capability, and high pressure coolant systems. Sandvik Coromant's CoroMill 690 has the design features to take best advantage of these modern machine tools and enhance your process. Productivity and overall cost reduction is very important in the manufacturing environment, and the selection of both machine tool and cutting tool is critical to yielding a high rate of production. Still, process security is also a key factor and without a secure process and reliable cutting tool, you risk inconsistent production, which threatens component quality. Sandvik Coromant has produced a line of indexable end mills with design features that increase security and insert economy that exceed the performance of todays solid end-mill products. Conventional solid round tools, such as high speed steel and cobalt end mills, have been the staple roughing tools in our marketplace for a long time. Metal removal rates are normally low when running solid tools, compared to indexable, due to the higher cutting speeds and feeds that the indexable tool can deliver. Solid tools are having to run for long periods of time, at low speeds and feeds to produce adequate metal removal. Sandvik Coromant's new CoroMill 690 can produce the same amount of metal removal in half the time of its solid tool counterpart. The CoroMill 690 offers a new patented tip seat that grips the insert and prevents micro movement in the pocket, which reduces pressure on the insert screws. Within each insert pocket is a port for coolant. These ports are threaded and allow for high pressure jet nozzles to be added. The nozzles in effect reduce the size of the coolant port on the tool at the cutting edge; hence, they increase the cutting pressure at the insert edge line. High cutting fluid pressure cools the cutting zone and evacuates chips much more effectively than external coolant flowing onto solid tools. These features are key factors in enhancing both productivity and security. They also match up well with the modern machine tool's high pressure coolant systems. The CoroMill 690 also comes standard with Coromant Capto, and HSK shanks to allow for strong and accurate tool holding in the spindle, which minimizes deflection,
Let's examine the details of some test date that was run in production on a titanium structural component for a commercial aircraft using the Coro Mill 690. The test was run on a new Okuma Space Center MA600HB. The Okuma machining center had a horizontal spindle location with high pressure coolant through the tool. The CoroMill 690 ran against a new cobalt roughing endmill. 2"X4" Cobalt Rougher 6 flute 2"X4" CoroMill 690 3 flute
Time is the important factor here. Time is money and getting the material off at a faster rate in less time allows a more substantial cost savings than using tools with less upfront cost that have to run longer to pay off. Through put is what you are looking for. The image below is a view of the component still in process before and after we machined the feature with the end mill.
The images above are of the tools that were tested, the existing solid tool and new indexable tool
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WITS 2009 is October 20 - 22 Click here for details
Sandvik Modern Art of Milling Seminars at Hartwig |
