Innovation Forum: “Increasing Performance”

View of the auditorium at the 4th Innovation Forum in Böblingen.

Organized by MAV, the German trade journal, the day-long event focused attention on the “The Products of the Future”. The range of subjects stretched from new developments in machine tools and their peripherals to innovations in the requisite precision tools and new approaches to automation. In their presentations, Martin Heckel, Head of Product Management at LMT Tools, and Gerhard Melcher, Product Management at LMT alliance partner Boehlerit, highlighted a key subject for tool specialists: the development of new cutting materials and coatings. “These factors play a central role in improving tool performance,” said Heckel, who impressively underscored this idea with references to LMT innovations. Thus, for example, the Speedcore cutting material for hobs and the Nanomold Gold and TERAspeed coatings for indexable inserts are achieving strong improvements in productivity in their respective areas of application.

Increased speed – more parts

Speedcore, for example, facilitates roughly 30% higher cutting speeds in the production of gears. That represents a major advantage for users, who can produce significantly more parts in the same period. “We were able to confirm this enormous performance hike in a series of machining trials at Magdeburg University,” emphasized Heckel during his lecture. The decisive factor here is the intermetallic cutting material that forms the core of the hob. It has a much higher hot hardness.

New coatings for indexable inserts

Nanomold Gold is a rather similar development success in the field of die and mould making. “The design of the coating makes it possible to vary the combination of individual layers and select different layer thicknesses,” explained Heckel. When used with steels up to 50 HRC Nanomold Gold indexable inserts can improve tool life by at least 30%. Another advantage is the very uniform wear along the cutting edge. This guarantees a high level of process reliability in cutting.

Gerhard Melcher explained why users are achieving new speed and tool-life records in the machining of cast materials with the TERAspeed coating. The hardness and temperature-resistance of the new kind of CVD layer facilitate the use of considerably higher cutting parameters than with the PVD AlTiN coatings that are available on the market. “Workpieces are processed much faster with the TERAspeed indexable inserts without this having any detrimental effects on process reliability. Production costs are significantly reduced,” said Melcher.

Exploiting further potential

“Speedcore, TERAspeed and Nanomold Gold are just a few examples from LMT’s extensive tool range. We are applying this approach to additional, completely different fields of application. The continuing development of coatings and substrates holds great potential, which we wish to exploit in coming years,” said Heckel in his concluding words at the MAV Forum.