As the largest cutting tool manufacturer in the world, Sandvik had a variety of bars and boring tools, carbide tools, drills, mills, gear cutters, reamers, and thread milling and threading tools, and tool holders and tool systems on display at EMO.
Earlier this year, Sandvik Coromant displayed its technology at its home offices in Sandviken, Sweden, and its engineers talked about developments they are pursuing to advance cutting technologies. Among the nuggets of information that Sandvik Coromant disclosed over several days of presentations, were the following:
- Sandvik Coromant is researching and developing processing methods and tooling geometries to meet the demands of its markets. For example: The company has developed a hockey-stick-shaped insert designed to meet the demand of cutting the hard alloys that are being designated by the aerospace industry. Also, its process engineers are looking at processes such as multiple-slice machining methods as techniques to cut difficult aerospace materials.
- Sandvik Coromant is working with software providers Delcam and Edgecam to develop trochoidal turning, an option for the computeraided manufacturing software programs that Delcam and Edgecam develop. Trochoidal turning has applications in a variety of products, from pumps to aerospace components, and now requires distinct programming.
- Sandvik Coromant also is researching a ceramic cutting tool grade that would cut metal without work hardening the part. Work hardening is a function of feet per second in a cut and the cutting path used in a cut, and a new cutting tool grade combined with the right geometry is expected to reduce work hardening.
- Sandvik Coromant is looking to have the application for its trademarked Capto toolholding system approved as an ISO standard in the coming months. Sandvik applied for ISO certification for the special toolholding system just over two years ago.
- Finally, Sandvik Coromant has been working on several new generations of cutting tool inserts that include low-stress coatings and physical vapor deposition (PVD) cutting tools. The tools with low-stress coatings are expected to have longer lives because stress cracking would be eliminated. Sandvik expects to begin to roll out the PVD tools in October.