Modern automobile parts manufacturing attaches great importance to the use of new materials: aluminum alloy, vermicular cast iron and various composite materials. In specific production and manufacturing, the successive application of various new materials not only greatly reduces the weight of the car, enhances the use efficiency, but also continuously improves the energy-saving and environmental protection capabilities. At the same time, the intensification of market competition has made the demand for cost reduction more urgent for automobile manufacturers. Under the premise of ensuring processing quality, higher production efficiency is undoubtedly the only choice to achieve this requirement. And efficient processing technology and cutting tools have become an effective means to ensure efficient production.
Cast Iron Cylinder Processing Characteristics
At present, advanced manufacturing technology is increasingly inclined towards high-speed machining. After adopting CNC high-speed machining centers, the spindle speed of tens of thousands of revolutions is benefited. With the use of dense-tooth milling cutters, high linear speeds and large feeds, the machining efficiency is greatly improved. The machining of cylinder blocks and cylinder heads in automobile engines is the most typical representative. Cylinder blocks and cylinder heads have special requirements for plane milling quality, including size, surface roughness, flatness, grain depth, workpiece edge loss, burrs, sufficient feed speed, and as little cutting power as possible.
Cast iron machining technology has been tested by practice for many years, and emerging solutions are emerging in an endless stream. At present, the blank allowance in the hands of manufacturers has been greatly reduced, generally below 3mm, and cast iron milling has also developed towards small allowances and even “net near size”.
Carbide is widely used in the automotive manufacturing industry due to its good comprehensive cutting performance and suitable cost-effectiveness. In the face of the need for efficient machining, its tool materials and structures have developed greatly. At present, carbide tools are developing new formulas in terms of materials and adopting new forming and sintering technologies. The development direction of new cemented carbide tools with high hardness and toughness is to be developed by using nanotechnology and ultrafine powder. In terms of structure, the development direction is towards sharp cutting edges, low power requirements, high table feed, high surface quality, a wider processing range and better economy.
New Pentagon Face Milling Cutter
At present, the new generation of pentagonal face milling cutters for the automotive industry has a variety of excellent technical performances. It not only improves the cutting performance of cast iron cylinder machining tools, but also effectively guarantees the quality requirements of cylinder machining.
Good Cutting Adaptation Ability
Different cast irons show different cutting adaptability when processed. For example, gray cast iron will show its brittleness, and it is easy to lose edges when the tool cuts out. Ductile cast iron shows its ductility, and it is easy to produce burrs when the tool cuts out. The newly emerged and most difficult to process vermicular cast iron combines the characteristics of the first two, showing that the blade is easy to wear and burrs are easy to produce.
The newly developed automotive industrial face milling tool is equipped with a pentagonal double-sided groove design blade, and the 10 cutting edges are conducive to improving economy. At the same time, the open groove structure, sharp cutting edge, and light cutting solve the problem of gray cast iron losing edges when cutting out. It also avoids the generation of burrs when cutting ductile cast iron, so that the tool body with a 67° main deflection angle has good cutting ability. In addition, the thick Al2O3+thick TiCN coating combined with the hard substrate has good anti-flaking properties. When different grades are selected to process workpieces of different materials, it can show a wide range of adaptability.
Stable Positioning Capability
There are often many holes designed on automotive parts, and the distribution of these holes is usually irregular. Therefore, when the tool is milling its end face, it is usually subjected to impacts of varying sizes and directions at any time, and the load changes irregularly. This is especially true when the machine tool has poor rigidity and power, which requires the tool to have very stable positioning capabilities. To this end, we have carefully designed the support structure of the new pentagonal tool blade. The optimized positioning method provides strong resistance to eliminate the reaction force in the cutting depth and feed direction during cutting.
During cutting, the blade is firmly fixed in the blade seat by a specially treated screw, and the blade is carefully designed with a groove shape. Extending the positioning surface all the way to the edge of the tool body ensures maximum support for the main cutting edge, greatly enhancing the processing stability. The tool body itself adopts a double negative rake angle, combined with a large rake angle blade, to form a basically sharp cutting edge. It not only meets the requirements for low load on the machine tool, but also ensures the impact resistance of the tool itself. At the same time, the high-precision tool groove ensures a high repeat positioning accuracy, which has great practical significance for the processing of automotive parts with strong requirements for stability.
Excellent Surface Finish Quality
Auto parts have complex shapes, and many parts have small bosses on their surfaces. The allowances before processing are usually inconsistent. However, for the sake of efficient processing, the milling of these small bosses is usually required to be done in one go. Conventional tools perform well at the same cutting depth, but as the cutting depth changes, the quality of the machined surface will fluctuate greatly. To solve this problem, the new pentagonal tool is designed with a special wiper edge on each cutting blade. The wiper edge has been specially treated to withstand long-term impact and wear and maintain a stable cutting state. This ensures stable surface processing quality even when the cutting depth changes.
Easy to Store and Manage
There are many parts in the automotive industry, and the materials used are different. Their different technical requirements use blades of different models, brands and specifications, and the consumption is huge. At the same time, these blades themselves require screws of different specifications, different clamps and wrenches, which requires manufacturers to keep a large inventory of these blades and accessories all year round. The storage and management of these blades consume a lot of manpower and material resources. If you are not careful, the wrong combination will cause an accident.
The new tool has a clamp type clamping and a screw type clamping model. The clamp type uses the same blade as the screw type. And the double-headed screw used for the clamp can use the same wrench as the clamping screw of the screw type clamping blade. Not only does it reduce the types of inventory models, but it also fundamentally optimizes its storage capacity. This is also one of the trends in the development of automotive tools.
