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Automotive Production

Living in the material world

It may seem contradictory, but what the world demands are materials that are both lighter than ever before and yet – stronger.This is true, not least for the automotive industry, trapped as it is be-tween, on the one side, increasingly tough standards and on the other the market’s ubiquitous demands for leaner engines that deliver more power.However, no matter what new materials the industry deems fi t to go into production, Sandvik Coromant’s role remains the same:To provide a tooling solution that works.

Lars Lindstedt is Global Business Development Manager for the Automotive industryat Sandvik Coromant. Dear reader The automotive fi eld is one of the world’s most competitive indus- tries.And I think it’s a privilege to be able to play a role in taking the business even further.It’s not only that I love cars. It’s also the challenge of dealing with three major issues facing the industry:•New materials. • Lowering costs •And the Environment.All three demand brave and de-cisive action from the automotive industry – and therefore of us.This year’s second issue of Automotive Production News is all about:Coping with the machining of new materials.Increasing productivity. And making sure the environ-ment doesn’t take a beating in the process.Read about our joint venture with DAF. And how we waste 40 tonnes of chips a year to give you a better cut.

One size does not cut all

New materials can be hard to deal with.So hard that we at Sandvik Coromant’s de-velopment labs have to go through an amazing 25,000 inserts and 40,000 kilos worth of chips, annually.Only to arrive at a mere three or maybe four inserts that are up to the job of cutting the lat- est materials.Some of them are extremely hard, other materials are tricky alloys. Some may appear in components that are hard to fi xate. Others have an unfriendly surface to crack.The list of challenges is long.Suffi ce to say every new material requires a unique tooling solution.

From compacted graphite iron to multi-metal

It’s an absolute requirement that we at Sandvik Coromant keep abreast of the latest develop-ments in the automotive industry.Engine blocks made of compacted graphite iron (CGI), for instance, which reduces emissions and fuel consumption, is an area of particular interest to us.And we have already come a long way in devel-oping productive techniques for the machining of CGI. We’re also working on ADI – or austempered ductile iron – a material that’s increasingly used to manufacture crank shafts.Then there are the bi or even tri-metal materi-als, which are becoming more common in cars and motorbikes. Aluminium and cast iron in one and the same component, for example.These multi-material combinations call for complex tooling solutions.High up on our development agenda are also more complex materials such as metal matrix composites, MMC, SiMo alloys and powder-metal com-ponents.

Challenging motorbike hub, featuring no less than three materials: aluminium, steel, and cast iron.