Mill products segment accounted for around one-tenth of the overall market. The segment’s demand is likely to grow by more than 7% from 2018 to 2025. Mill products are pure tungsten metal products such as electrodes, lighting filaments, electrical & electronic contacts, sheets, wires, rods, etc. Developments in the electronics industry will be the major factor driving the mill tungsten market growth during the forecast period.

The market may face challenges from the huge demand-supply gap over the past years, causing a significant drop in the product prices since 2014. This led to a fall in the global market size in terms of revenue, and the manufacturers underwent losses in order to balance the demand-supply dynamics. Though, the prices stabilized after 2016, leading to a rise in the market size, the level of uncertainty may pose hindrances in tungsten market share over the coming years.

”It’s too early to tell whether 3D-printed WC-Co will reach the mechanical properties of its conventionally manufactured counterpart", he added, "although achieving this would certainly lead to commercial uses."

“While the ability to 3D-print a complete cutting tool would have tremendous potential for new product designs, the durability, toughness, and strength needed for most machining operations are not available with 3D-printed materials, at least not as of now,” he said. “Further, good chip evacuation is one of the most important aspects of machining, and one very common failure mode is when the workpiece material packs into the flute surface or rake face. Because 3D-printed material is often very porous in contrast to these polished surfaces, it would hinder chip removal from the cutting area.”

North America will grow by a CAGR of around 7% from 2018 to 2025. Developments in the country’s automotive, aerospace & defense, and oil & gas sectors will propel the tungsten market value in coming years. Latin America and Middle East & Africa regions have much lower product demand when compared with other regions. However, these regions will have a high industry growth rate during the forecast period.

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This would increase the demand for tungsten carbide because it is widely used in the mining industry in manufacturing top hammer rock drill bits, roller-cutters, downhole hammers, raise boring reamers, long wall shearer picks, long wall plough chisels, tunnel boring machines, etc. With increasing demand for precious metals in China and other developing countries, the global mining industry is likely to maintain an upward trend in coming years and will propel the tungsten market growth.

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Perhaps not. Markus Wilms is a materials expert for laser-based additive manufacturing technologies at Fraunhofer ILT, one of the world’s leading centers for contract research in laser development and applications. He explained that the Munich-based firm is working on a project funded by Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy. Its goal? To produce 3D-printed indexable inserts and drills from tungsten-carbide cobalt (WC-Co).

When faced with a unique part geometry or feature for which no standard cutting tool is available, machinists sometimes braze chunks of carbide together then manually grind the piece to the desired shape. When finished, these ad hoc milling, drilling, and boring tools often look like Frankenstein’s monster.

Kennametal recently developed a lightweight stator bore tool for a manufacturer of electric vehicle components. Star Cutter has added 3D-printed monoblock tool bodies to its lineup, and Mapal uses SLM (selective laser melting)-style printers to produce brazed polycrystalline diamond “bell” tools for machining hydraulic hose connections.

Because of its relatively high accuracy and ability to produce fully dense metals, laser-based powder fusion is a primary driver behind the growth of 3D-printed cutting tools. Ceratizit

But what if manufacturers could eliminate this sintering step and print the carbide cutting tool to near-net shape? After all, tungsten is a refractory metal, and as noted previously in The Additive Report, these tough, hard, heat-resistant metals can be 3D-printed. Can tungsten carbide be all that different?

It is used in lighting technology, electronics, power engineering, automotive & aerospace sectors, coating & joining technology, medical technology, and many other important industries worldwide.

This four-flute, solid-carbide end mill features a variable helix, unequal flute spacing, and extreme accuracy. Although 3D printing might achieve comparable cutter geometries, the precision and surface finish remain out of reach. Rollomatic

The mining sector is a key end-user for the product, especially for carbides. Numerous industries worldwide depend on the supply of commodities from the mining sector. The top 40 companies, which represent a vast majority of the global mining industry, generated around USD 600 billion of revenue in 2017.

The technology could then be transferred to other challenging materials, such as high-strength nickel-based alloys, refractory metals, and intermetallics—a type of metal alloy boasting a crystallographic structure that provides superior mechanical properties at elevated temperatures.

Schwarzenbach said he’s seen 3D-printed tools for display purposes and oversized ones at trade shows. He’s also heard of multinational tool manufacturers who have made 3D-printed milling heads with lightweight body adapters for very specific purposes. An example is Sandvik Coromant’s CoroMill 390, which reportedly provides up to 200% productivity gains. Other toolmakers are following suit.

Based on end-use, the global tungsten market is segmented as automotive parts, aerospace components, drilling, boring & cutting equipment, logging equipment, electrical & electronics appliances, and other end-uses including chemical, defense equipment, etc. Drilling, boring and cutting equipment is a major end-use sector in the product market.

Aerospace components is also an important tungsten market end-use sector which is poised to grow by more than 7% CAGR during the forecast period. The product is extensively used in manufacturing aerospace components such as rotor blades, propellers, inertial systems, fluid control systems, bucking bars, trim weights, aircrafts balance weights, and many more.

There’s a healthy demand from industry for 3D-printed cutting tools made from WC-Co, Wilms said. Aside from eliminating significant amounts of subtractive manufacturing (such as grinding) associated with traditional processes, 3D printing offers the possibility to manufacture tools to near-net shape.

Asia Pacific, having accounted for more than half of the product demand in 2017, is poised to grow by more than 8% CAGR. The regional industry will be chiefly driven by China, which is the largest producer as well as consumer of the product. High growth in China’s automotive, aerospace, mining, and electronics sector will be the major factor behind its dominant tungsten market position.

But as any machinist will attest, you do whatever it takes to get the job done. Will 3D printing make this shop practice obsolete? The president of Rollomatic Inc., Eric Schwarzenbach, is skeptical that it will—and with good reason. He said that no one at the Mundelein, Ill., supplier of cutting tool grinding equipment and accessories has been asked about grinding 3D-printed materials—carbide or otherwise—nor does he think it would make sense to 3D-print a cutter blank and then grind it to the required geometry.

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“We are working together with materials experts from [IWM Institute], tooling experts from RWTH Aachen University’s [Laboratory of Machine Tools and Production Engineering], and a quite large consortium of metal powder providers, LPBF [laser powder bed fusion] machine manufacturers, and other industrial partners,” said Wilms. “The technology is not yet commercial, but we hope to get closer to this status by the project’s end in 2023.”

A caveat of 3D printing is that tools emerge from the build chamber in the “green” state, and, like all carbide, must be sintered in a high-temperature oven before being ground on a tool-and-cutter grinder.

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These examples of 3D-printing carbide cutting tools are interesting and fill distinct and necessary needs. But they are niche applications; it appears additive manufacturing will be limited to such applications. Or does it? Schleinkofer agreed that in the case of cemented carbide, a reliable process able to provide the same quality as conventional manufacturing technologies had not been developed. Until recently.

Most of the companies in the market are integrated across the value chain and are involved in raw material production, processing as well as manufacturing of finished products.

Tungsten carbide is the most popularly used form of the product which has hardness close to diamond. It is denser than steel and titanium, twice as hard as any steel grade, and has extremely high wear resistant. Due to these characteristics, the product is widely used in construction, mining, and metalworking applications.

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Another member of this band is Ceratizit Group, which is headquartered in Luxembourg and has a U.S. office in Warren, Mich. Uwe Schleinkofer, head of research and development at Ceratizit Group, pointed to a recent customer success story in which the toolmaker 3D-printed a multifluted indexable cutter body for finish-machining an electric motor housing. As with Kennametal’s stator bore tool, lightweighting was a primary goal of 3D-printing the cutter body. Schleinkofer added that “digital fine adjustment and tool life monitoring were useful add-ons made possible through 3D printing.”

The solution is to radically adjust build parameters. Where the printing of hard materials with LPBF typically involves some level of baseplate preheating, Wilms and his team have experimented with temperatures up to 900 degrees C (1,650 degrees F), nearly twice as high as commercial LPBF printers. However, such temperatures led to anomalous WC growth and other adverse effects within the material’s’ microstructure. On the other hand, lower preheating temperatures resulted in the formation of defects such as cracking or lack of fusion.

The solution has been a Goldilocks approach, one that’s not too hot and not too cold. “We developed the idea of using a near-infrared device to heat the powder bed from the top in combination with the conventional baseplate heating device,” Wilms explained. “This allows us to reduce the overall heat input into the printed part during the building process and, hopefully, reduce WC grain growth.

The segment will register around 8% CAGR during the forecast period. These equipment are used in mining, construction, oil & gas, and metalworking industries.

Based on application, global market has been segmented into tungsten carbide, metal alloys, mill products, and other applications such as salts, tungstates, sulfides, oxides, etc. Carbide is the largest application segment and is likely to grow with a CAGR of around 8% during the forecast period. Increasing usage of these products as drilling, boring, and cutting tools in various industries will drive the tungsten market.

Tungsten Market size was estimated over USD 3.5 billion in 2017 and the industry will grow by a CAGR of around 8% through 2025. Increasing product deployment in different end-user industries such as automotive, aerospace, defense, electronics, oil & gas, mining, etc., will augment the global market.

Though details are scarce, Ceratizit has developed an additive process that not only achieves the customary quality of products manufactured by pressing and machining, but it lets the company respond better to customer requirements. Schleinkofer said: “We can 3D-print polymers, rubber, steel, specific hard ceramics, refractory metals, and, yes, cemented carbide. The challenges of making them—achieving the desired accuracy, part shape, surface quality, and a completely dense material—are the typical ones that all additive manufacturers face. But it is still an ideal solution for small volumes and high component complexity.”

Since its discovery in the middle ages, tungsten or wolfram has been used by humans for a wide range of applications. The tungsten market makes an important contribution to a country’s economy, through its use in high-speed steel tools and cemented carbide, and by helping to achieve high productivity levels in manufacturing industries.

Majority of the product is used in manufacturing cemented carbides or hard metals. These are materials made by cementing tungsten carbide grains in a binder matrix of a tough nickel or cobalt alloy using the process of sintering.

Additionally, LPBF can produce integrated, application-specific cooling channels, which should increase these products’ lifespans. But because WC-Co is a composite material with an extremely high tungsten content, it’s challenging to laser-sinter.