Cutting Materials Of Super Hardness
Extreme hard materials are the result of latest research and development. The past 100 years witnessed tremendous progress in many fields of science and technology including material technology. The modern developments in science and technology resulted in the use of very hard materials in mechanical, automobile, precision metal stamping and aviation fields. This in turn resulted in the invention of new ultra hard cutting materials to make cutting tools to machine these parts. Apart from carbide cutting material several other ultra hard materials like ceramic, polycrystalline diamond (PCD), mono-crystalline diamond (MCD-natural diamond), diamond coatings on cutting tools, synthetic mono-crystalline diamonds as well as polycrystalline cubic boron nitrite are developed.
Extreme Hard Metals
Adequate use and applications of cutting tools made out of these super hard materials will result in noticable timing saving, increases cutting edge life, high cutting speeds, higher accuracy, high quality surface finish and can reduce the cost.
Polycrystalline Diamond (PCD)
Polycrystalline diamond material are manufactured by high temperature and high pressure process where the diamond coating is directly combined with a carbide support. Polycrystalline diamond is produced by sintering of superior quality diamond powder with metallic binder. Depending upon the usage polycrystalline diamond materials are available in various grain sizes. For example the diamonds with rough grain sizes are used for manufacturing cutting tools with excellent resistance to wear and tear due to its ability to retain cutting edge for a very long period. If we require very high surface finish on manufactured item, and then super micro grain sizes are highly preferred.
Medium grain sizes are used for general all purpose cutting tools since it is a balance between high wear resistance of rough grain size and superior finish of ultra micro grains. This makes the medium grain sized polycrystalline diamond as an excellent ultra hard material for making high quality metal cutting tools.
Natural Diamonds
Mono crystalline diamond or MKD is nothing but natural diamond out of pure carbon. These natural diamonds enable the manufacturing of geometric defined flutes with absolutely notch free flutes. Natural diamond (MKD) is one of the super hard materials which are suitable for achieving very high surface finishes for mirror bright surfaces, machining of non-ferrous materials, micro machining and machining of titanium without burr.
Synthetic Mono-crystalline Diamond
Further research and development resulted in synthetic mono crystalline diamonds which are obtainable in triangles and rectangle shapes with an edge length of approximately eight millimeters. The natural diamonds often contains nitrogen and it could have different hardness and heat conductivity. On the other hand the synthetic mono-crystalline diamonds have uniform structure with constant thermal conductivity and less internal stress.
In modern industry synthetic mono-crystalline diamonds are being made in differents shapes and sizes which offers great possiblities of application of this super hard material in future. Researches have found very good improvements in synthetic mono-crystalline tool life, improved surface finish and fixed wear and tear behavior compared to other ultra hard materials like PCD and MKD or natural diamonds. More about ultra hard materials.