The speech will also focus on the production of Metal Powders and Powder Metallurgical Steels and especially its associated production technologies like HIP, MIM and AM. As they are and will become key future core technologies for a number of demanding products and thus for the usage in different associated industries. The presentation will also highlight the actual supply and demand situation...
The development of martensitic steels suitable for exposure to corrosion with simultaneous wear attack is a challenging task, as corrosion and wear resistance are opposite properties in terms of alloying. With the development of NbC-containing corrosion-resistant steels, it has been possible to combine these properties. Due to its higher hardness, NbC increases the wear resistance of the steel...
Today's tool and die making industry is characterized by increased individualization and complex manufacturing processes. Therefore, toolmaking companies are forced to always push the limits of what is technically feasible. The usual heterogeneous use of different manufacturing technologies generates high manual planning efforts and requires a cross-technology process understanding. A large...
Due to the increase of the complexity of the products and the shorter time-to-market, it is also necessary to develop the required tooling to attend to the planned deadlines. This scenario requires advancing the state-of-the-art frontier to improve the tooling competitiveness and productivity.
To achieve such improvement and increase in competitiveness, it is necessary to insert the tooling...
The powder metallurgical incorporation of hard phases in steel matrices is an established concept to form a metal matrix composite with excellent mechanical properties. Especially TiC has been extensively used in a wide variety of steel matrices in the past. This is primarily due to its high hardness and decent bonding behavior towards steel matrices. While the stability of TiC particles is...
The present work focuses on the knowledge-based expert system to develop an automated die and punch tools design for the sheet metal forming process (deep drawing operation). The major limitation of the conventional forming process is the manufacturing of dies. As the attributes of the final component varies, the configuration of the tooling (punch and die) require to be modified. Hence, the...
To predict the solidification and product properties of tool steels with complex chem-ical compositions, an understanding of the transformation behaviour during and after solidification, depending on the chemical composition, is crucial. Therefore, the qua-ternary Fe-C system with 10 w.t.-% Cr and 3% W (subsystem of cold work steels, with M7C3 and M23C6 carbides) and the Fe-C system with 6% W...
As most steelmakers, Erasteel is fully involved in decreasing its CO2 and environmental footprint. Erasteel already produces its high-speed steel using 90% recycled material and has the ambition to reach 100% in near future. The today’s remaining 10% are mainly metallic oxides (V2O5, MoO3) or ferro-alloys (FeW, FeCr, FeSi) and cobalt (Co). The total life assessment shows that producing from...
In hot metal forming processes, the temperature of the forming tool progressively increases under serial production conditions. Water based two-phase lubricants may be applied to cool the forming tool and moderate temperature, in which the liquid agent would evaporate or decompose rapidly with dry matter deposited on the tooling surface during the dwelling time before the forming process...
Wear and in particular abrasive wear in injection molding is a core research topic for the institute of injection molding of polymers at Montanuniversität Leoben. The standard application-oriented test for abrasive wear of polymers on plastic mold steels is the platelet-wear-tester method in which two steel specimens form a thin wear slit. The glass fiber reinforced polymer melt is injected...
Corrosion-resistant mould steels are used to process chemically aggressive plastics such as PVC or PET in many plastic moulding processes such as extrusion, injection, blow and compression moulding. Free machining (sulfurized) grades are common choice for holders where the requirements are machinability and dimensional stability, whereas low sulfur grades are preferred for high surface finish...
Multiple cycles of tool dimensional correction during tryout process are one of the most critical aspects in manufacturing of stamping tools, causing significant impact to its production cost. An alternative to reduce tryout time and cost is to perform the dimensional corrections in a virtual model, so that ideally, all the corrections can be done to the simulation before the test of the...
Powder metallurgy (PM) high speed steels have traditionally been used for tools but are gaining increased usage for demanding components such as rings in bearings and fuel injection. These components, but also many of the tools, are under cyclic load, sometimes several millions of cycles. For that reason, the fatigue resistance of PM-HSS (HSS) is one of the most important mechanical...
In this paper, a concept for hybrid forming tools with complex shape and conformal cooling channels is outlined. By using indirect additive manufacturing (AM) of sand molds via Binder Jetting technology and state of the art casting process as well as Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) and the latest of AM tool steel powder development to manufacture a complex press hardening tool, the authors show...
Direct Laser Metal Deposition (DLMD) is an additive manufacturing technique getting growing attention thanks to the possibility to produce very complex parts in short time and in a cost-effective manner. Possible applications of this technology are tools with conformal cooling channels and claddings for dies and moulds reparation. AISI H13 is a hot work tool steel, typically used for hot...
Wire is all around us and it forms joints in our structures, stabilizes our tires and transports electricity. In almost every complex product there are components made from wire. In wire drawing hot rolled material is drawn through a single or a series of tools called drawing dies, reducing the cross-section and enhancing the mechanical properties of the material. The tribological conditions...
In this study, different carbide morphologies of Cr-Mo-V powder metallurgical tool steels with the similar composition were compared. It is known that carbide size, height and orientation are very effective on wear properties such as galling and abrasive wear. Carbides can also act as stress points for crack initiation. In our study, larger carbides produced via new innovative process...
Laser additive manufacturing enables the one-step fabrication of complex parts. This technology has been applied for tooling due to advantages such as fast tool development, low material costs and high geometry freedom. However, pores and carbide networks, which are not avoidable from the LPBF process, deteriorate the fatigue strength significantly. Hot isostatic pressing (HIP) with integrated...
Laser Powder Bed Fusion (LPBF) is an additive manufacturing process that enables the production of complex shaped components. Conventional high-carbon tool steels tend to cracking and warping during LPBF due to internal stresses caused by the rapid solidification. Expensive atomization and long lead times for powder generate high costs for material development in this processing route.
The...
In this investigation, profiled high interstitial austenitic stainless steel parts were burnished on a profile rolling machine and afterwards the wear behavior was analyzed in a
melt of glass-reinforced polypropylene. Wear and corrosion resistance are significant properties of steel parts in plastics and food industries. The high work hardening ability of the
stainless steel enables...
In cold work applications, tool steels with high carbide contents are mainly used as cutting and stamping tools. The efficiency of cold forming processes depends on the tool life, which is limited by wear resistance and fatigue strength. Forming tools often fail due to fatigue fracture since fatigue design is usually not performed. Microstructural and statistical understanding of the...
Die casting tools with improved cooling by conformal cooling produced using additive manufacturing allow to reduce cycle times and improve the part quality. Most available tooling materials for additive manufacturing are however, either not enough heat resistant or difficult to print. The paper presents Pearl®Micro TS700, an innovative 5% chromium, precipitation hardening tool steel, with a...
The use of Laser Additive Manufacturing (LAM) techniques, such as Laser powder bed fusion (L-PBF) or Laser Directed Energy Deposition (L-DED) for the manufacturing of forming tools has gained increasing interest in both industry and academia due to the processes’ high geometrical flexibility. LAM allows for a layer-wise build-up of parts based on 3D-CAD-data by either the local melting of a...
Meeting increasing requirements concerning part quality and process profitability despite difficult-to-machine materials is only possible with a deep process understanding. In this context, knowledge about the process temperature is of decisive im-portance, since it affects material properties such as hardness or forming behavior as well as chemical and physical interac-tions between tool,...
The industry segment of tooling applications has demonstrated significant developments in the field of Additive Manufacturing (AM) in the last decade. Progressing all the way from prototyping to high Technology Readiness Levels (TRL), thus enabling production capabilities. Especially, in relationship to Laser Powder Bed Fusion (L-PBF) and Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) technologies. The latest...
Abstract
Additive manufacturing methods are applied in various fields of industry because of advantages like rapid production of parts or freedom in design. In most cases materials with a low amount of carbon, e.g. stainless steels, are used for 3D-printing. An important and widely used representative of these grades is the material 1.4404 (316L), which is well established because of an easy...
The constantly increasing requirements for tool materials continuously set new challenges concerning loading capacity, resistance to damage and crack propagation as well as the characterisation of these properties, especially at elevated temperatures that arise e.g. at cutting edges when cutting metal workpieces. Essential progress in the field of tool technology and knowledge-based selection...
The purpose of this study is to assess the impact of different combinations of cryogenic treatments and tempering regimes on tribological properties of Cr-V tool steel against a CuSn6 counterpart. Dry sliding wear experiments were performed using a pin-on-disk tribometer according to the Taguchi method. Tribological behaviour is investigated under four process parameters at mixed levels:...
Stainless austenitic steels like the 316L are very popular in the field of Additive Manufacturing. This clearly is due to the easy processability of austenitc steels in the AM process. Austentic steels can be printed with little distortion, which means that less support structures are required. This again reduces cost-intensive build-time as well as post-processing requirements. One...
Hot stamping tools require cooling channels, preferably with a variety of sizes and a high positioning flexibility. Conventionally, these are machined. This represents a disadvantage because of the limited accessibility for milling tools and the low flexibility. By means of the Directed Energy Deposition (DED) process a flexible design of the cooling channels is possible. For this,...
Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) is one of the promising processes for additive manufacturing thanks to its ability to produce practically large metallic parts and complex geometries in a cost-effective manner and short lead time. Moreover, it can be utilized for reparation and cladding, making it an outstanding choice for tooling and molding. In the current work, the heat treatment behavior of...
Usually, tool steels are used in quenched and tempered condition. Due to the phase transition from austenite to martensite and the volume change during the transformation, controlling of distortion might be a challenge. The end user’s demand for high hardness of the final tool leads to a poor machinability.
Engineering steels with bainitic structure are generally based on a low alloying...
The public funded project AddSteel aims to develop functionally adapted steel materials for additive manufacturing. Based on the AM process laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) the holistic process chain, including alloy design, powder atomization, additive manufacturing and post heat treatment is considered to achieve this objective.
Tool steels are usually characterized by higher carbon content...
The need to develop products with superior performance has led to the development of new materials and heat treatments. In the case of tools, well designed and controlled heat treatment is crucial to achieve appropriate combination of superior properties. In the huge number of heat treatment and surface engineering techniques, deep cryogenic treatment (DCT) shows very promising results....
Thanks to its high hardness and cracking resistance in hot-working operations, AISI H13 is acknowledged as all-around steel for die making in high-pressure die casting, extrusion, and hot stamping. In addition, the opportunities offered by Additive Manufacturing (AM) to fabricate complex shapes and closed channels strongly meet the needs of hot-work tools designers but typically are not easily...
The improvement of material properties for tool applications has always been an overriding development topic. To minimize wear, tool steels, special alloys based on nickel
or cobalt and metal matrix composites (MMC) have been developed – either as molten or as powder metallurgical materials. In this study a new kind of material is described which combines the outstanding properties of...
Near full-dense and crack-free AISI H13 hot work tool steel was fabricated using laser-directed energy deposition (L-DED). Two different heat treatment schedules, i.e., direct tempering of the as-built part (DT) and austenitization and quenching prior to tempering (QT), were selected. The effect of heat treatment on the microstructure, hardness, fracture toughness (Kapp), and softening...
Wire drawing is one of the oldest and most used metal forming processes. In a conventional wire drawing process, the cross-section of the wire is reduced to the final dimension by drawing the wire through a series of drawing dies made of cemented carbide or poly crystalline diamond. Despite the use of different types of lubricants wear of the dies, frequently resulting in time-consuming die...
Böhler W360 ISOBLOC is well known as high performance hot work tool steel. The main characteristics are high thermal and wear stability, hardness in use up to 57 HRC and particularly the resistance against crack propagation. Therefore the main applications are as thermal and mechanical highly stressed tools among others for Al high pressure die casting (HPDC) inserts.
Nowadays the...
The objective of this work is to verify the machining process behavior of the Cr3C2 25NiCr HVOF coating. which can be used for the automotive, aerospace industries and naval, improving the sufarce finish of the thermal spray. The coating is machined with a 12mm diameter carbide ball nose tool, in which the tool is parallel to the surface, with a cutting speed of 100m/min, and a feed of...
Although anisotropic surface textures have been used to improve tribological performance in various mechanical systems in recent years, relatively few researchers have investigated the use of such textures in metal forming processes. In addition to achieving a better understanding of how anisotropic surfaces influence forming behaviour, it must also be considered that directional friction...
It has long been recognized that die surface roughness and lay have significant effects on flow behavior in sheet metal forming processes. In comparison, relatively little research has been conducted to explore similar effects in bulk forming processes. In the present paper, an experimental study was conducted using warm and hot working conditions to investigate how directional (anisotropic)...
Electro-slag remelting is an important process to produce high quality tool steels. Thereby the slag composition has a strong effect on the remelting behavior in general and on the electric energy consumption as well as on the removal of non-metallic inclusion. Later aspect is strongly related to chemical reactions taking place between the slag and the metal and thereby determines the...
During machining, the employed cutting tool experiences thermo-mechanical loads that cause wear
at the interacting surfaces, hence, limiting the tool life. The speed of chip sliding and contact pressure on the
tool dominate the magnitude of wear; therefore, these factors were considered in the developed interactive
friction model. Considering high heat generation results in a temperature...
Intelligent temperature control of die casting moulds opens up enormous potential for improving cycle times, tool life, as well as the structure and warpage of the cast parts. In this context, “intelligent temperature control systems” are three-dimensional, contour-adapted temperature control systems that can be produced using generic AM processes. Moving them close to the component and...
High pressure die casting (HPDC) is a well established manufactory process which allows, specially the automotive sector, to make high precision components in fast paced rates. Furthermore, the increasing need for lighter components stimulate the use of low density alloys, making the HPDC suitable for this emerging demand. Nevertheless, every manufacturing process has spaces for improvement....
The typical heat treatment of martensitic stainless steels consists of hardening and subsequent tempering once or several times. During tempering the common tempering
mechanisms occur, such as carbide precipitation, relaxation of the fresh martensite, destabilisation of the retained austenite and subsequent transformation of austenite into martensite. In the case of low-alloyed steels,...
Low Pressure Die Casting (LPDC) is a widely used process for the manufacturing of automotive components. These components have high mechanical requirements, which
are difficult to achieve reproducibly within standard boundary conditions in LPDC. To ensure part feasibility, some areas are oversized to improve filling behavior and therefore local me-
chanical properties. Targeting these issues...
Chromium- and chromium-vanadium ledeburitic tool steels are extensively used in industry, for cold work tooling. The applications where abrasive wear is dominant such as fine-blanking, punching, cropping, shearing or trimming are typical examples. For these applications the steels must have high strength and hardness. On the other hand the tools have to withstand the chipping or cracking in...
For industrial mechanical food processing steps, like cutting, slicing, grating, passing or similar applications, tools of martensitic stainless steels are preferably used because of their high hardness and corrosion resistance. The latter is decisive to avoid contamination of foodstuff by elements transferred from the steel alloy into the processed food.
In this work various martensitic...
Efficient processes offer a promising approach to meet requirements from global trends like sustainability or resource shortage. The process of orbital forming is established
for the manufacturing of functional components with a gradient in sheet thickness, like for example in a clutch. Nevertheless, the present tool setup disposes a lack in economic efficiency and is restricted by a maximum...
The die-casting molds employed with molten aluminum under high pressures are subjected to severe localized corrosion, which is due, mainly, to the intense thermal cycling at temperatures around 700 °C. The recovery of molds usually involve the removal of the damaged region and reconstruction through welding. By a different approach, the resistance and lifespan of the recovered piece can be...
Improving tool life under cyclic loadings is of great economic interest, since forming tools often fail due to fatigue fracture initiated at volume or surface defects. Increasing the fatigue strength of tool steels can be achieved through improved steel making or properly chosen case hardening. Diffusion layer plasma-nitriding has never been investigated statistically or...
ROTA 2030 (in English, Route 2030) is a Brazilian strategic program for developing the automotive sector. Among its priority lines, it focuses on bringing competitiveness to the Brazilian tooling industrial sector. Called “Ferramentarias Brasileiras Mais Competitivas” (in English “More Competitive Brazilian Tool Shops”), it is a line organized in four axes, among which the first three...
The growing importance of lightweight construction to reduce resource consumption is leading to the increased use of multi-material systems consisting of components with varying geometric and mechanical properties. However, the joining processes to manufacture these assemblies are gradually reaching their limits, which is why innovative processes and methods are required. To enhance the...
Intelligent material combinations for the production of multi-material systems as well as lightweight construction to save weight are becoming increasingly important in industrial applications. But the joining process of dissimilar materials, such as high-strength steel and aluminium as well as steel and continuous fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRT), which are often used in multi-material...
