Product category:
Drilling, boring and reaming
News Release from: TaeguTec UK | Subject: MQL tooling - drills
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 14 February 2008
Drills perform semi-dry hole-making
The trend towards environmental awareness and employee welfare has led to the development of semi-dry hole-making using minimum quantity lubrication.
The trend towards environmental awareness and employee welfare is of increasing importance To this end, TaeguTec continues to develop its range of products that work with minimum quantity lubrication (MQL) - a process that mixes oil with air to optimise the cooling process
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 12 Mar 2002 at 8.00am (UK)
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A major issue in the workplace at present, said TaeguTec, is inhalation of mist type coolants and extremely high pressure coolant applications commonly used in high specification machine tools.
One solution is dry machining - an issue TaeguTec has been a pioneer with, said the company to manufacturingtalk.com.
However, in some cases this creates reduced tool life, poor surface finishes, plastic deformation of the workpiece and difficulty in handling high temperature swarf.
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Dense carbides mill cast iron at 45,000 rev/min
Specifically designed for mould and die toolmakers and high speed machining applications, the use of extra dense, sub-micron grade carbides in end mills enable cast iron milling at 45,000 rev/min.
Ceramic inserts turn tough materials faster
Ceramic turning inserts allows high nickel content alloys, such as Inconel 718 and Waspaloy, to be turned at speeds of up to 350m/min - six times faster than standard ceramic tooling.
Exceptionally strong holder allows bigger feeds
Providing exceptionally strong clamping force, a turning toolholder is ideal for high feed machining enabling feeds to be increased greatly when conducting continuous or interrupted cutting.
As an alternative, TaeguTec has worked to develop MQL or semi-dry machining cutting tools.
The MQL tooling delivers environmental improvements for the customer and the employee operating the machine.
One area that TaeguTec has developed MQL tooling for with considerable success is drilling.
Drilling - when high speed machining generates from 700 to 800 deg C at the cutting edge, tool life can fall considerably.
It is here that MQL can be applied affectively as it can reduce heat generated and improve surface finishes.
Despite coolant being the best solution for general steel machining applications, when high speed machining processes generate upwards of 1,000 deg C the coolant evaporates at the contact area before having any substantial benefit.
In fact the cooling effect is reduced and tool life decreases.
A similar situation occurs with low speed machining of heat resistant alloys such as inconel - and it is here that MQL comes to the fore.
Another area that MQL is advantageous is interrupted machining.
When applying fluid to interrupted machining the continual change of temperature causes cracks whilst dry machining causes heat deformation and poor surface finishes.
* Deep hole drilling - one area that TaeguTec has concentrated upon is deep hole drilling, particularly up to 30xD range (D = diameter).
Prior to recent development work, tungsten carbide and HSS drills would be used for deep hole drilling of steel at cutting speeds from 25-60m/min with a feed of 0.05 to 0.08mm/rev with 5-10 bar of coolant pressure.
To counteract poor productivity and short tool life caused by poor chip evacuation, TaeguTec has developed products to improve drilling productivity and meet the demands of improving machine tools.
Developments with tungsten carbide drills and machine tools now allow 30xD drilling at 100m/min with 50-80bar pressure of coolant.
This improves chip evacuation but generates misting of the coolant, which causes health problems for the employee and environmental issues for the company.
On the other hand, dry machining generates poor chip evacuation that leads to poor drill life and performance.
The optimum solution for this increasingly common operation is MQL drilling, said TaeguTec.
* Optimised geometries - the TaeguTec MQL drills have optimised geometries for smooth chip evacuation and low cutting forces.
With no peaking cycle required the MQL drills improve productivity whilst giving the user excellent cost savings with reliability.
Ideal for mould and die and repetitive automotive applications, the TaeguTec MQL drills reduce the use of coolant to almost zero whilst increasing productivity considerably with speeds increasing to 80 to 150m/min with feed rates increasing to 0.15 to 0.2mm/rev.
This ability of the TaeguTec MQL drills to meet remarkably high feeds and speeds makes the MQL range the ideal choice for deep hole drilling.
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