Cutting Tool Lubrication Orifices for Hard-Material Machining
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing cutting tools with internal lubrication orifices are complex and costly to produce, limiting their use to simple shapes and applications in materials with hardness below a certain threshold, restricting their effectiveness in machining hard materials like ceramics and hard metals.
Innovation Solution
A method for manufacturing cutting tools with complex-shaped lubrication orifices using a polymer insert, overmoulding, sintering, and machining, allowing for the production of tools that can efficiently machine hard materials by optimizing lubrication and cooling.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of manufacture
If traditional machining methods are used to create lubrication orifices in high-strength steel cutting tools, then the tool body can be produced with simple orifices, but the manufacturing complexity and cost increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the lubrication orifice formation process from traditional machining by using a polymer insert that is removed after overmoulding. This extraction allows complex 3D orifices to be formed without complex machining operations, as the insert itself defines the orifice geometry and is simply removed by dissolution or extraction processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The polymer insert is placed in the mould cavity before overmoulding, performing the preliminary action of defining the future orifice shape. This preliminary positioning of the insert eliminates the need for complex post-machining operations, as the orifices are already formed by the insert's geometry before the tool body is created.
2Reliability
If complex-shaped lubrication orifices are produced in hard materials, then effective lubrication and cooling can be achieved, but the machining becomes too complex or impossible with existing tools
Solution Approach 1:
The polymer insert acts as an intermediary tool that enables the formation of complex orifices in hard materials. Instead of attempting to machine complex shapes directly in hard steel or ceramic materials, the soft polymer insert is first formed with the desired complex geometry, then used as a mould cavity during overmoulding, and finally removed to leave the complex orifices in the hardened tool body.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent changes the material parameter from hard steel to soft polymer for the insert, allowing complex geometries to be formed easily. After overmoulding, the material parameter changes back to hard material in the final tool body, achieving both ease of manufacture for complex shapes and the required reliability for hard material machining.
3Reliability
If cutting tools are designed with internal lubrication orifices, then lubrication and cooling effects are improved, but the manufacturing cost and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The complex orifice-forming operation is extracted from the main tool manufacturing process by using a removable polymer insert. This allows the orifices to be formed as a natural consequence of the overmoulding process rather than requiring separate complex machining operations, significantly reducing manufacturing cost and complexity while maintaining reliable lubrication.
4Strength
If high-strength steel is used for cutting tool bodies, then tool strength is improved, but the hardness limits machining of lubrication orifices to simple shapes
Solution Approach 1:
The polymer insert serves as an intermediary that bypasses the limitation of hard material machining. By using the soft insert during the forming stage and then removing it, complex 3D shapes can be created in the high-strength steel tool body without being constrained by the difficulty of machining hard materials.
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
Enables the machining of hard materials such as ceramics and hard metals by providing effective lubrication and cooling, expanding the applications of cutting tools beyond grinding operations to include milling and other machining processes.
Implementation Method 1
removing 320 the polymer insert, so as to form in the body of the cutting tool lubrication orifices
Implementation Method 2
sintering 330 the body of the cutting tool 10
Implementation Method 3
depositing an abrasive coating 350 on a surface of the active part of the body of the cutting tool
Data Source
AI summary
A cutting tool, including a body including lubrication orifices and having a gripping part to be fastened to a tool-holder chuck and an active part including an active surface along which helical grooves extend, the grooves being connected to a central hollow extending axially in the body of the tool via radial channels, the central hollow extending between a lubricant intake opening opposite a lubricant discharge opening, and the discharge opening being configured so as to generate a Venturi effect.