The market prospect of cemented carbide cutting tools is very impressive. Tool News Source: China Grinding Network Release Date: 2010-12-1 The rise of global raw materials and the increasing number of global competitors have created value for customers with high-quality products and excellent services. The key to competition, for this reason, tool manufacturers are also actively seeking a better way for their own development and for the progress of the entire industry.
It can be seen from the distribution map of major tool materials in the world, of which high-speed steel accounts for 35% and cemented carbide accounts for 15%. At present, the main producing areas of tungsten are the Alps, the Himalayas and the Pacific Rim. China owns 60% of tungsten deposits. Due to the shortage of raw materials in the international market, the price of APT has risen from US$50 per ton to about US$250 per ton in recent years. The cost increase will eventually be passed on to the end user of the tool. At present, relevant research institutions in the world are conducting active research on such situations. The main research plan is to reduce the amount of tungsten in the tool as much as possible. The main method is to only use tungsten in the key parts of the tool or design special Tool geometry parameters.
From the statistics of the tool industry, it can be seen that the proportion of cemented carbide will gradually increase in the future, while the proportion of high-speed steel products will gradually decrease. Statistics from the Japan Tool Association show that China has become the world's largest consumer of machine tools, followed by Japan, the United States, and Italy. Asia's economy is growing rapidly. According to statistics from the Asian Development Bank, China's GDP growth in 2007 was about 10%, and India's was about 8%. In a good economic environment, the Japanese metal processing industry has also continued to grow rapidly in recent years. From the perspective of tool output value, the output of cemented carbide cutting tools has continued to increase in recent years, while high-speed steel cutting tools have begun to show a downward trend. Significant growth, the main export destination is Asia, followed by Europe, then North America and other regions.
High-speed machining has been generally recognized as a processing technology that increases yield and reduces manufacturing costs. The dry machining or minimum quantity lubrication concept is the main goal of today's processing industry to reduce environmental protection and production costs. The most important thing for tool manufacturers and coating suppliers is productivity. Cutting performance (cutting speed, cutting amount per unit time) is increased by 20%, and manufacturing cost will be reduced by 15%. Increasingly demanding machining requirements require further development of tool materials and coatings, improved machining conditions and improved tool designs. Current challenges and areas for improvement mainly include: mechanical and structural properties: hardness, strength, wear resistance; thermal and chemical properties: heat resistance, insulation, catalysis; biological properties: adaptability, insecticidal properties ; Electronic and optical properties: reflectivity, transparency, etc. In recent years, (Ti, Al)-coated carbide tools have dominated the high-performance tool market. The high demand in some special applications has prompted the development of special or precise coatings.
The word "nano" comes from the Greek "dwarf", 1 nanometer is equal to 10 minus 9 square meters, nanotechnology refers to the design and production of devices and systems that can control the shape and size of material structures at the nanoscale. Its range is defined in the range of 0.1 to 100 nm. There are two main reasons why nanometers are important. One is that their surface/volume ratio makes them have the most unique surface property advantages; the other is quantum effects.
The main forms of nanomaterials and nanostructured materials are: atomic clusters, nanoparticles, nanolayers, nanofibers; multi-layered (the thickness of the layers is in the nanoscale range); nanostructured coatings or nanocoatings; nanostructured Granular materials, etc. Nanoscale coating: The coating has at least one dimension (such as grain or vertical layer) less than 100nm. Nano-grained coatings have lower wear rates, higher hardness and strength than conventional coarse-grained coatings. The tiny particle size changes the coating's fracture pattern and material removal mechanism, but the key issue is thermal stress. down to maintain the particle size. Nanohybrid coatings contain at least two phases (crystalline and amorphous) or two crystalline states. The distribution of size, volume and nanograins and the thickness of the amorphous phase needs to be optimized to find a balance between ultrahardness and strength, thermal stability needs to be considered, non-mixing exhibited during the coating process and later stages properties, decomposition inflection points, and segregation phenomena. The nano-multilayer structure is composed of alternating nano-layers of different materials, with anisotropic properties, which enhances the performance of the single-layer coating, and improves the coating properties through the mutual assistance of different alternating layers.
Optimistic estimates put the value created by nanotechnology at $3 billion in the next 7-8 years, and even pessimistic estimates can reach $1 billion.
