PCD End Mills Market Expansion and Technological Advances Forecasted for

The undoped CVD diamond films have a nine-layer architecture with two different morphologies viz. nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) and sub-microcrystalline diamond (SMCD). The increase in grain size increase the density of grain boundaries of the coating, which improves the cutting performance.

“Manufacturing in Asia is not always cheaper anymore,” he says. “If you can get to the mold tool far quicker and cheaper, and you can prove it out and get into production quicker, that has a lot of value.”

Automated technologies adopted for toolmaking is just a matter of time, says Sorom, because “there just isn't the labor out there anymore, and companies need a new level of speed that didn't exist previously. That's exactly the opportunity here.”

Automation in the form of a Mantle 3D printer is part of the solution Heyco Products, a U.S.-based manufacturer of electrical components, found to boost its in-house molding and toolmaking capabilities in 2023.

Prakash Rout, Bismay. "Boron-Doped Diamond Thermistor for Thermal Sensing of Diamond Coated Cutting Tools". AZoM. https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=57557. (accessed September 22, 2024).

Innovation, and speed-to-market with that innovation, is key in any type of manufacturing today, which is another area Mantle sees as an ideal fit for its solution across a wide breadth of markets.

"Fundamentally, companies don't buy technology, they buy solutions to problems they have,” says Ted Sorom, CEO and co-founder of Mantle, “so early on, we focused on figuring out which problem in which industry we were going to solve. And then to be honest, we picked a hard one. And it's taken us over eight years and tens of millions of dollars to develop the solution.”

Hence, an accurate measurement can only be attained if the emissivity of the work object is well known throughout each specific range of varying machining conditions. Thermocouples suffer from the physical accommodation of wiring in tools and also provide inaccurate temperature readings since the hot junction of the thermocouple cannot be positioned directly at the machining interface, where maximum heat is generated.

Thermistors are temperature sensors calibrated by the dependency of resistance on temperature variation. Boron doped diamond (BDD) films developed by chemical vapor deposition (CVD) exhibit excellent temperature sensitivity.

“There's been about a 60% reduction in the number of highly skilled toolmakers in the U.S. at the same time that there's a really strong demand to do more injection molding state side,” says Sorom. “Customers have been saying that they need something that automates this process, so that they can use the small number of skilled toolmakers they have left, and still grow their business.”

In the metal and alloy machining industry, productivity is directly dependent upon process parameters such as cutting speed and feed rate. Hence, an increase in productivity can be achieved by optimization of the cutting cycle, increasing tool lifetime, and minimization of downtime. Two major factors, cutting force and cutting temperature, affect tool life. Thus, effective monitoring of cutting temperature can improve machining productivity.

An injection molded, threaded cap made from a 3D-printed metal mold insert, right, created on a ... [+] Mantle P-200 machine.

Temperature measurement recorded by the thermographic camera shows the occurrence of lower temperature at the tool tip when approximately at the middle of the cutting path and higher temperature at inflection positions. This curve was used for calibration of the diamond-based thermistor, for which the resistance variation induced a 0.84 mV/°C variation at the photodiode. Image Credit: Pratas, S et al., Materials

Prakash Rout, Bismay. (2021, December 03). Boron-Doped Diamond Thermistor for Thermal Sensing of Diamond Coated Cutting Tools. AZoM. Retrieved on September 22, 2024 from https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=57557.

The prepared BDD thermistor demonstrates higher sensitivity in the higher temperature range. This behavior is attributed to a hopping conduction mechanism at low temperatures, which is due to the low doping level of the diamond film (~600 kW at 25 ℃).

Prakash Rout, Bismay. "Boron-Doped Diamond Thermistor for Thermal Sensing of Diamond Coated Cutting Tools". AZoM. 22 September 2024. .

Within reach of you right now are probably five to 10 plastic products, or parts of products, made with injection molding. It’s one of the most common manufacturing methods in the world, and most of it takes place in Asia, mostly for economic reasons. One company is hoping to change that by offering American manufacturers an alternative to the most expensive part of the injection molding process, the metal mold itself.

Resistance variation of the diamond NTC thermistor in the range 25–400 °C. (a) Measured curve. (b) Linear regression and fitting according to the “beta” and Steinhart-Hart models. Image Credit: Pratas, S et al., Materials

The primary distinction between graphene-based batteries and solid-state batteries lies in the composition of either electrode. Although the cathode is commonly changed, carbon allotropes can also be employed in fabricating anodes.

Mantle, a 3D printing startup, just received an additional $20M in Series C funding to expand its hardware-software-material solution that uses 3D printing metal to make ultra-precise steel injection molds in less time and at less cost than traditional processes. The funding is led by Schooner Capital, a Boston-based private investment firm, and joined by Fine Structure Ventures, Foundation Capital, Corazon Capital, 11.2 Capital, and Build Collective.

In this study, a BBD-based thermistor is fabricated by HFCVD to monitor the temperature variation during the milling of an Inconel workpiece using a DCC cutting tool. The linear regression of the characteristic resistance-temperature dependence of the BDD thermistor indicated higher temperature sensitivity in the temperature range of 250 to 400 ℃.

The P-200 can make molds roughly the size of a breadbox, which sounds small but covers about 70% of all plastic parts made with injection molding, leaving only 30% of the market that Mantle cannot address.

This corresponds to a resistivity of approx. 900 W.cm. The response time of the diamond thermistor closely matches the response time of the thermographic camera with an average delay of ~1 s. The BDD thermistor shows an average voltage variation of 16.5 mV in the photodiode, due to the difference between the highest temperature at inflection positions of the cutting tool and the lowest temperature at the mid path.

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Plastic 3D printing has been successfully employed to make prototype molds and those that are viable for 10 to hundreds of uses before they degrade.

In situ temperature-monitoring methods such as infrared (IR) thermography and thermocouples provide good approximations of the metal surface temperature, but there are certain limitations for both.

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These chemically treated specimens are coated with diamond powder to form multilayer diamond films in a hot filament-assisted CVD (HFCVD) reactor. The films are composed of nanocrystalline diamond (NCD) and sub-microcrystalline diamond (SMCD).

Bismay is a technical writer based in Bhubaneshwar, India. His academic background is in Engineering and he has extensive experience in content writing, journal reviewing, mechanical designing. Bismay holds a Masters in Materials Engineering and BE in Mechanical Engineering and is passionate about science & technology and engineering. Outside of work, he enjoys online gaming and cooking.

First, the digital design of the mold tool is uploaded to the printer. Then a metal paste is extruded to form the mold. A CNC machining toolhead comes into the process whenever needed to refine the part. The two processes continue until the final mold is formed. It’s then sintered in a furnace until fully solid.

Mantle’s technology already has produced injection molds used to produce millions of end-use parts, ranging from medical devices and deodorant packaging to industrial components.

Researchers from Portugal recently developed an effective thermistor-type temperature monitoring method for boron-doped diamond-coated carbide cutting tools. It overcomes the limitations of the traditional temperature measurement approach with thin-film thermocouples and infrared thermography in certain cutting scenarios. This study is available in the journal Materials.

Every year, American manufacturers spend $8 billion making mold tooling, globally the figure is $45 billion. Mantle’s market is any company making molds, any injection molding provider, or any OEM that makes its own products using injection molding. In other words, it’s huge.

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In this study, first, a diamond-coated carbide tool (DCC) is fabricated by depositing undoped diamonds on the tungsten carbide tool. The 7 wt.% cobalt cemented tungsten carbide (WC) grains are attacked with Murakami reagent for surface roughening followed by immersion in H2SO4 and H2O2 solution for cobalt etching.

Temperature monitoring with thermographic cameras is very sensitive to the emissivity of work material, which depends on factors like surface roughness, measurement angle, and the temperature of the surface being measured.

“We built a pretty strong moat around our technology that makes it difficult for someone to replicate what we do,” he says. “You would have to have both a printer hardware technology, which took years to develop; a patent-pending materials technology, which we've developed; and we have patents on the software side, too.”

Although there are other metal paste extrusion 3D printers on the market, Sorom says Mantle is a more integrated and focused solution.

Mantle’s machine called P-200, of which there are dozens installed across the U.S., is a hybrid 3D printing and CNC machining system. It integrates 3D printing metal with precision machining throughout the process to produce parts with the same accuracy (+/- 0.001 per inch) and surface finish as traditional tooling, the company says, but faster and more automated.

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Pratas, S., Silva, E.L., Neto, M., Fernandes, C., Fernandes, A., Figueiredo, D., Silva, R., Boron Doped Diamond for Real-Time Wireless Cutting Temperature Monitoring of Diamond Coated Carbide Tools. Materials, 2021, 14, 7334. https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/14/23/7334

Then, tungsten oxide (WO2) is vaporized from the tungsten hot filaments at 1800 ℃ followed by the reduction of WO2 in presence of hydrogen and methane to form ohmic tungsten carbide WC contacts.

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By focusing on 3D printing the tools that enable mass production, rather than 3D printing the parts themselves, Mantle is outside the mainstream 3D printer industry. It has focused exclusively on delivering a solution aimed as solving one of the global manufacturing industry’s toughest challenges: bringing down the high costs and lengthy production times associated with tool creation for mass production.

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Manufacturer Heyco say with new automation from Mantle helps fill gap from the shortage of highly ... [+] skilled tool makers.

One Mantle customer, a medical device company, used the technology to make molds for 25 to 50 initial parts needed for FDA approvals. The FDA requires the mold to be the same material as the one for high-volume final production, so polymer prototype molds were out of the question.

When the temperature increases the electrical resistance of the BDD thermistor decreases. BBD also exhibits high chemical inertness, thermal conductivity, and mechanical robustness for applications under harsh working conditions.

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US manufacturers spend $8 billion annually on molding tools. This mold insert was 3D printed on a ... [+] Mantle P-200.

Other 3D printing technologies are also addressing the ripe-for-disruption mold-tool market. Metal 3D printing using laser powder bed fusion technology, such as from EOS EOS , Nikon-SLM, and 3D Systems, can produce molds with deep intricate cooling channels that aren’t possible to make with machining tools. But while these tools enable injection molded plastic parts to cool faster, which boosts quality and efficiency, the molds can end up costing more than traditional tools and take longer to make.

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Prakash Rout, Bismay. 2021. Boron-Doped Diamond Thermistor for Thermal Sensing of Diamond Coated Cutting Tools. AZoM, viewed 22 September 2024, https://www.azom.com/news.aspx?newsID=57557.

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Since the pandemic supply chain disruptions, many manufacturers have sought to bring back critical part production to the U.S., or as much as is feasible. For companies that injection mold millions of parts a year, reshoring production is a sizable challenge, but even for the companies that produce far less and could transition production lines back to U.S. facilities, there’s another challenge: finding skilled tool makers, those who can machine, finish, and assemble a metal mold.

Where Mantle is unique is its focus on replacing machining for the same solid steel molds manufacturers use today. “In our case, we really sell speed and cost reduction in any tool you make,” says Sorom. “Plus, you still have the full capabilities of using those unique geometries that enable conformal cooling channels just like the other 3D printing solutions.”

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At a time when sales of industrial 3D printing systems are down, Mantle’s sales in the first quarter of 2024 were 40% more than all of last year's revenues for the company, says Sorom.

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Moreover, the BBD thermistor exhibits a faster response and minor average variation of 0.84 mV/ ℃ than its counterpart IR thermography. To conclude, BBD thermistor is an effective, fast responsive, real-time, and in situ temperature monitoring solution for the heavy machining industry.

“We purchased a Mantle system for two reasons: to reduce time-to-market for our products and to make our toolroom more efficient while attracting next-generation talent to Heyco,” says Danny Anthony, the company’s vice president of operations. “By using Mantle to print mold tooling, we have already brought a new product to market two months faster than we would have otherwise.”

Experimental setup for Hot Filament Chemical Vapor Deposition of (a) undoped diamond on carbide end mills and (b) boron-doped diamond on a silicon nitride substrate for thermistor fabrication. Image Credit: Pratas, S et al., Materials

Subsequently, a thermistor is fabricated by the deposition of a BBD film on top of a silicon nitride (Si3N4) insulating substrate. Here, argon is used as the carrier gas for boron dopant in HFCVD. The carrier gas is bubbled through a B2O3/ethanol solution and deposits on the Si3N4 substrate.

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Study: Boron Doped Diamond for Real-Time Wireless Cutting Temperature Monitoring of Diamond Coated Carbide Tools. Image Credit: GRADIENT BACKGROUND/Shutterstock.com

Heat generates at three primary zones during machining viz. the primary shear-zone (the plastic deformation at the interface of the machining tool and the workpiece), the secondary shear-zone (the friction at the interface of the tool and moving chips), and the tertiary deformation zone (the friction between flank face and the machined surface).

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