Material Development of PCD Cutting Tools

Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) tools have the advantages of long tool life and high metal removal rate when processing aluminum workpieces, but their disadvantage is the high price and processing cost. This has become a consensus in the machinery manufacturing industry.

Development of PCD cutting tools

However, in recent years, there have been many changes in the development and application of PCD cutting tools. Nowadays, aluminum materials have greatly improved in performance. When processing various newly developed aluminum alloy materials (especially those with high silicon content), in order to achieve the optimization of productivity and machining quality, it is necessary to carefully select the type and geometry of the PCD cutter to adapt to different machining requirements.

Another change in PCD cutting tools is the continuous reduction of processing costs. Under the combined effect of market competition and tool manufacturing process improvement, the price of PCD cutting tools has dropped by more than 50%.

The above trends have led to the increasing application of PCD cutting tools in aluminum material processing, while the applicability of the tools is restricted by the materials being processed.

PCD cutter materials

PCD composite sheets with extremely high hardness and unique mechanical properties are sintered from a mixture of diamond particles and catalysts at high temperature and high pressure. Diamond particles coexist in the synthesis process and establish connecting "bridges" between them, thus obtaining PCD materials with catalytic island structures, similar to integral diamonds.

The structure of PCD materials is different from that of polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN) materials. In PCBN materials, there is no actual bonding substance between CBN particles, while in PCD materials, there are coexistences between diamond particles, and diamond particles are interconnected through lattice "bridges".

PCD cutter types are classified according to the particle size of diamond particles. According to the manufacturer's standards, the particle size of diamond particles corresponding to fine, medium, and coarse PCD grades are roughly 2 μm, 10 μm, and 25 μm, respectively. Coarse PCD grades have higher strength and wear resistance than fine PCD grades, and have longer working life in rough machining, but the cutting edge of coarse PCD cutting tools is difficult to achieve the smoothness of the surface of fine PCD cutting tools. Therefore, fine PCD cutting tools can achieve better machining surface smoothness, but wear faster.

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