Mature Application Of PCD Tool In Duralumin Processing Industry

Duralumin refers to the alloy formed by adding certain elements in the aluminum alloy to maintain the advantages of pure aluminum light; at the same time can have high strength; strength is better than many alloy steel, and become the ideal structural material very common in machinery manufacturing, transportation machinery, power machinery and aviation industry, automobile piston, wheel hub, calipers, and the fuselage of aircraft, etc. They are often made of aluminum alloy to reduce their weight, and welding aluminum alloy instead of steel plate materials can reduce the structural weight by more than 50%.

Duralumin (aluminum alloy) performance advantages

The widespread use of aluminum alloy has promoted the development of aluminum alloy welding technology; through long-term production practice and scientific experiments, people gradually add alloying elements and use heat treatment and other methods to strengthen aluminum. For example, aluminum alloys with different contents of silicon, magnesium, and zinc alloying elements belong to high-strength and high-quality aluminum alloy products, with better processing performance, excellent welding characteristics, and electroplating, good corrosion resistance, high toughness and no deformation after processing, dense materials without defects and easy polishing, easy color film, excellent oxidation effect, and other excellent characteristics.

Duralumin processing difficulties and tool material selection

The tool materials for processing aluminum alloys are cemented carbide, ceramics, and polycrystalline diamond (PCD). When using YG class cemented carbide to cut aluminum alloy materials, the wear resistance of the tool is poor because silicon is usually added to the aluminum alloy material to improve its application performance, and the silicon element can react with the alloy tool to accelerate the wear of cemented carbide; Although the ceramic knife has higher hardness and wear resistance than carbide, good high-temperature performance, the brittleness of the ceramic and low thermal conductivity is easy to crack resulting in blade damage, these shortcomings limit the use of ceramic tools in the processing of aluminum alloy materials.

Poly-crystalline diamond (PCD) is the ideal tool material for cutting aluminum alloy, with high hardness and wear resistance, very low friction coefficient, sharp cutting edge, and good cutting surface quality. And with the continuous reduction of PCD tool processing costs in recent years, the common improvement of market competition pressure, and the tool manufacturing process, the price of PCD tools has been significantly reduced by more than 50%. Compared with the performance, price, and use of pcd tools, the application of pcd tools in processing aluminum alloy materials is increasing.

        ZYsuperhard superhard tool in duralumin (aluminum alloy) processing application scheme

Take the typical application of duralumin in the automotive industry as an example to interpret the application scheme of ZY superhard tools in aluminum alloy processing:

(1) The processing tool scheme of automobile aluminum alloy piston

Piston common processing parts include the outer circle, top end face, top ball socket, outer ring groove, pinhole, and others. In the development process of aluminum alloy for pistons, three alloy types have been formed, which are divided into eutectic alloy (silicon content of about 12%), hyper eutectic alloy (silicon content of about 18%), and high-silicon aluminum alloy (silicon content of about 25%) according to the silicon content. With the increase of silicon content of engine piston material, the processing performance of the material decreases; ZY Superhard has developed an ideal tool for high-silicon aluminum alloy - polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tool, the tool scheme used in the processing of automotive aluminum alloy piston:

PCD blade/inserts - standard blade (VCGX series) and non-standard blade, mainly used for rough finishing piston round, high-quality PCD cutting tool blanks, can be cut at high speed, improve processing efficiency.

PCD groove cutter - the main finishing piston ring groove, special carbide matrix plus high wear-resistant PCD material, effectively overcomes the phenomenon of easy to break the tool in the processing process, compared with the traditional tool processing, can also greatly improve the actual processing efficiency, improve cutting speed, reduce the cost of tool change, so that the quality of the workpiece has a better guarantee.

PCD milling cutter - ball end milling cutter mainly rough finishing piston top surface ball socket, high wear resistance of PCD material can meet the large margin cutting, excellent surface roughness, high tool life! The end milling cutter is mainly used for rough finishing piston top surface platform, suitable for large margin, high speed, high feed cutting. The forming milling cutter is used for roughing and finishing piston pin holes, circlip grooves, and orifice/hole bottom chamfer. It can complete multiple processes with one tool change and has higher efficiency.

(2) The processing scheme of Automotive aluminum alloy wheel

ZYsuperhard polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tool is suitable for processing parts of the aluminum alloy wheel hub, rim, spoke, groove bottom, and others.

Because of the process of processing aluminum alloy wheels, factories often encounter problems, such as the section being not bright, white, pinholes, and others. Valin superhard has different particle size PCD grades, mainly for different aluminum content of silicon aluminum alloy; to achieve better processing results, The cutting tool scheme used for automotive aluminum alloy wheel processing is as follows:

ZY superhard also supplys different non-standard pcd cutting tools,welcome to contact us when you need.