JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015 - 68

tooling

A revolutionary range of polycrystalline
diamond (PCD) tooling blanks

By
diMitrios livadas
Managing direCtor eMea & india
eleMent six

The low machining speed and high wear rates of current tooling
solutions limit the production capacity of today's carbon fibrereinforced plastics (CFRP) components. In 2014, Element Six (E6)
launched a new revolutionary range of polycrystalline diamond (PCD)
tooling blanks specifically designed to increase the productivity of
CFRP drilling and milling operations. The company is a member of
the De Beers Group and a global leader in the design, development
and production of synthetic diamond supermaterials.

that can match precisely the customers'
milling and drilling applications.

l

n edge trimming, independent research
has shown the Aero-DianamicsTM range
can achieve at least three times the
feed rate and last at least 10 times longer
than traditional carbide tools. In drilling
of CFRP aluminium stakes, the AeroDianamicsTM products drill at least twice
as fast and at least 10 times longer than
traditional carbide drills. The range has
the potential to support the global aerospace and automotive industries' adoption
of CFRP.

Main benefits
For the first time, the Aero-DianamicsTM
range allows a three-dimensional (3D)
cutting geometry to be achieved, in a
PCD mill or drill, representing a significant step change in tool design. For end
users, this enables CFRP airframe components to be produced more efficiently and
rapidly, decreasing lead-times and enabling the delivery of finished components

for assembly to meet strict targets. The
Aero-DianamicsTM product portfolio consists of five production-ready PCD round
tool blanks, which when built into tooling
systems, increase the ability of manufacturers to mill and drill CFRP faster, more
cleanly, at lower temperatures and with
lower tool forces. Using the new PCD tool
blanks, tool designers can create new tool
geometries that offer an increased number
of flutes and flute profile designs, almost
limitless flute angles and orientations, i.e.
left hand, right hand or compressive.

Dedicated to aeronautics
After identifying a market need for a
new set of abrasive materials that would
be able to increase the manufacturing
speed of next-generation CFRP aircraft
such as the Boeing 787 and the Airbus
A350, the company developed the AeroDianamicsTM range of PCD round tool
blanks for the production of drill and edge
trimming tools for CFRP, which opens
a new chapter for its customers to stay a
step ahead. The new range was specifically
developed to allow the tool designer to
achieve previously impossible geometries

Finished end mill and drills produced with Element Six's revolutionary new Aero-DianamicsTM polycrystalline diamond, showing the industry's first three flute helical geometries - never possible before.

68 jec composites magazine / No95 March 2015
JEC COMPOSITES MAGAZINE - Issue #95 - Special JEC Europe - March 2015

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