Multipart PCD Cutting Head for Lower-Cost Long-Life Tools
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Solution Overview
Problem
High-hardness materials used in cutting tools, such as polycrystalline diamond, become disproportionately expensive and lose strength with increasing volume, making large cutting tools costly and less effective.
Innovation Solution
Connecting multiple individually available high-hardness material blank elements, such as polycrystalline diamond, through soldering or other methods to form a larger cutting head blank, allowing for the production of longer cutting head blanks with tool cutting edges that extend across multiple elements, thereby avoiding the disadvantages of increased cost and decreased strength.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If a single large high-hardness material blank is used for the cutting head, then the cutting tool achieves high wear resistance and long tool life, but the cost increases disproportionately and the strength decreases with increasing volume
Solution Approach 1:
The cutting head is divided into multiple smaller blank elements made of high-hardness material that are connected together. This segmentation allows the use of smaller, more cost-effective blanks while achieving the required overall size and performance, directly resolving the contradiction between tool life and manufacturing cost.
2Reliability
If a single large high-hardness material blank is used for the cutting head, then the cutting tool achieves high wear resistance, but the strength of the blank decreases with increasing volume
Solution Approach 1:
By dividing the cutting head into multiple smaller blank elements, each element maintains its inherent strength characteristics. The segmented structure avoids the strength degradation that occurs in single large blanks, while the connection between elements provides the necessary overall structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The cutting head is formed as a composite structure by connecting multiple high-hardness material elements together. This composite approach combines the wear resistance of high-hardness materials with the structural strength of a multi-element configuration, resolving the contradiction between wear resistance and blank strength.
3Ease of manufacture
If multiple cutting head blank elements are connected to form a larger cutting head, then the cost and strength issues are avoided, but the complexity of the manufacturing process increases
Solution Approach 1:
The segmentation of the cutting head into multiple elements inherently increases manufacturing complexity, but this is acceptable given the significant cost benefits. The principle is applied to achieve cost effectiveness by using smaller, more economical blanks.
Solution Approach 2:
The cutting edges are produced on the individual blank elements before they are connected together. This preliminary action simplifies the overall manufacturing process by allowing standard cutting edge production methods to be applied to each element independently, before assembly.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables the fabrication of cutting tools with high wear resistance and long tool life at lower costs, as the connected elements form a larger cutting head without the weaknesses associated with continuous joints, maintaining strength and reducing expenses.
Implementation Method 1
The cutting head blank in turn comprises multiple cutting head blank elements, which are fixedly connected to one another, preferably soldered to one another
Data Source
AI summary
A tool blank (30) for a cutting tool (1), such as an end mill, drill or engraving tool, includes a tool shank (2) configured to be received in a rotating tool holder of a processing machine, and a cutting head blank (3) fixedly connected to the tool shank (2). The cutting head blank (3) includes multiple cutting head blank elements (5) fixedly connected to each other, preferably soldered to each other, and made of a high hardness material such as polycrystalline diamond. A cutting tool (1), such as an end mill, drill or engraving tool, has at least one tool cutting edge (15) that is defined on such a tool blank (30) and extends over multiple cutting head blank elements (5) that are fixedly connected to one another.