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06/04/2010 Crankshaft machining at maximum speed? This is possible with CERATIZIT! The new crankshaft milling tool with ceramic cutting material reduces the cutting time by 40%.

Crankshaft machining at maximum speed? This is possible with CERATIZIT!

The new crankshaft milling tool with ceramic cutting material reduces the cutting time by 40%.

CERATIZIT S. A., Mamer, Luxembourg (headquarters), April 2010.

Time and again new cutting materials seem to promise increased economy of machining processes, but only tools which can be applied on the shopfloor really help operators. CERATIZIT combines the advantages of high-performance cutting materials with innovative tooling solutions. This increases the cutting speed and improves precision when milling crankshafts.

Patrick Zobl, product manager for crankshaft machining at CERATIZIT, has discovered the potential: “As a carbide specialist we have a lot of experience in the field of cutting material production and in the development of application-oriented tools. Thus we are able again and again to choose new optimized methods with regard to the various application fields of the cutting materials. And it is what we have been doing, and we’ve been doing it very successfully.”

In this project the challenge consisted in achieving a notable increase in cutting speed for crankshaft machining. Due to the higher temperature on the cutting edge which results from the higher speed, the carbide cutting material had to be replaced with nitride ceramic. This however required the development of an absolutely reliable screw clamp for ceramic inserts, so the CERATIZIT specialists developed specific geometry with a central hole.

The knowhow gained in the MaxiMill HEC (High Efficiency Cutter) development project helped a lot in this context, as MaxiMill HEC represents a face milling system onto which carbide, ceramic or CBN inserts may be mounted. This idea was seized on by CERATIZIT development expert Hannes Brandhofer who applied it to the new crankshaft milling tool. The new tooling system consists of a milling wheel, cassettes and ceramic inserts clamped by means of a screw. The system was tested on a crankshaft made of spheroidal cast iron GGG-60.

This is possible with cutting ceramic: high-speed cutting of crankshafts for the very first time

The original carbide tooling system achieved a cutting speed of about 250 m/min. Applying the silicon nitride grade CTN3105 it was possible to raise the cutting speed to 1,000 m/min simultaneously reducing the machining time by 40%. Furthermore the tolerances of the components were notably closer.

“In this way the operator for the first time has the possibility to choose between conventional cutting parameters applying carbide inserts, and high-speed machining with cutting ceramic which considerably reduces the cutting time,” states product manager Zobl, summing up the main advantage of the new tooling system. Zobl continues: “Of course milling cutters for crankshaft machining will never be standard products, but always customized high-performance tools.”

The carbide specialist CERATIZIT is synonymous with “hard material matters”

CERATIZIT S.A. is a pioneer and global player in sophisticated hard material solutions. The company operates from Mamer, Luxembourg. CERATIZIT is the world market leader in unique and consistently innovative hard material products for wear protection and cutting tools and is present in more than 50 countries. In the automotive industry, mechanical engineering, oil industry, medical systems, electronics as well as mould and die making customers benefit from this fact. With more than 400 active patents and 4,000 employees, CERATIZIT is your high-powered partner worldwide.