Testing & Results
We conduct a wide range of tests each year for a wide variety of customers. Some we are unable to share as we are within non disclosure agreements.
We have ‘removed’ testing, this is when we take the materials involved and reproduce a test environment in the laboratory and the second is when we do ‘like for like’ comparison trials at the customers works.
‘Removed’ testing can be expensive and time consuming but the results are detailed. The ability to change speed of feed and depth/pressure of cut are the main reasons for time and cost growing as a change in variables will take you to another avenue for exploration.
Example
ASP23 material.
Customer needed to prolong tool to last full shift.
A range of pressures and speeds were applied to a reciprocal wear test. The results showed that by increasing the pressure applied to the wear point, proportionally less friction was generated and the corresponding wear ‘scar’ was reduced by around 15%.
Conclusion is that increasing pressure to the cutting tool made from ASP23, after it has been cryogenically treated, will increase the working life of that tool. Maintaining the usual pressure will show no benefits in using cryogenics.
‘Like for like’ trials are the most common as we get a quick comparison and just a few changes to speed and feed are used to further test results. We need to see a steady and predictable history for current achievements before we start introducing cryogenically treated parts.
Example
M2 cutting tools.
Customer wanted to improve performance on a commodity cutting tool to differentiate in the market.
Customer set up a simple test rig, in house; to count the number of holes produced using an auto resistance head. The material being cut was the same as the material being cut ‘in the field’. 120 identical tools taken, from a single batch, 60 tools were measured and 60 sent for cryogenic processing before measuring.
The results from the treated and the non treated set were averaged.
Example
Carbide ‘tip’ used in woodworking production.
Cost of changing set of tips costly in time and restricted production.
Batches of 50 tips (enough for complete tool change) tested over 3 month trial period.
By simply cryogenically treating the tips, the number of finished items rose from 1 unit to an average of 5 per set of tooling so increasing the production through-put.
Tooling required reduced to 25% of original cost, reduced ‘marking’ of finished product and reduction in production bottleneck. The main saving is that tool changes now happen only at shift change over instead of several times during.