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Technology & Innovation
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Efficiency through longer service lifetime
Modern wear protection coatings increase tool service
life and, thereby, also ultimately reduce setup costs.
Their strengths are, however, above all displayed in cut-
ting applications, in which they enable significantly higher
cutting speeds. Oerlikon Balzers has decisively shaped
the development of TiN coatings for gear cutting tools
since their first introduction in the 1980’s. “Today, more
than 60 percent of all hobs worldwide, which are used
first and foremost in the automotive industry, are coated
with our AlCrN coating BALINIT ALCRONA PRO,” said
Dr Wolfgang Kalss, Head of Marketing and Product
Management Tools.
For good reason: with coatings such as these, cutting
speeds go up – and costs go down. An example calcula-
tion based on test with the new BALINIT ALTENSA coat-
ing demonstrates this: if the speed of gear cutting can
be increased from 200 to 300 m/min, machining time
(primary and secondary times) goes down from 0.56 to
0.42 minutes per gear. This reduces machining costs
by about 25 percent, based on the machine-hour rate.
If one considers the overall costs of producing a gear,
this represents a cost saving of about 10 percent. It thus
pays to invest in new substrate materials or coatings.
Improved conductance and hot hardness
BALINIT ALTENSA is the newest product from Oerlikon
Balzers successful AlCrN-family to excel, above all, in
terms of wear resistance, thermal shock stability and hot
hardness. In light of market demand for ever increasing
processing speeds, coating properties were specifically
further optimized for high temperatures. “In essence
we further reduced thermal conductance and improved
the hot hardness of the coating by a good 20 percent,”
explained Wolfgang Kalss. This produced even greater
crater wear resistance, which can, in particular, occur at
high service temperatures and reduce tool service life-
time.
Abrasive wear resistance was, moreover, optimized
by about 35 percent, as was oxidation resistance. This
reduces flank wear at moderate and high cutting speeds
and extends tool service life, even with dry machining.
The bottom line is that the numerous improvements
in layer development enable considerable productivity
gains with longer tool lifetimes, significant performance
boosts at the highest cutting speeds for all substrates
(PM-HSS, MC90, carbide), as well as higher cutting
speeds and feeds.
More performance, reduced costs
Renowned European vehicle manufacturers and suppli-
ers have tested BALINIT ALTENSA in different applica-
tions – PM HSS hobs and carbide hobs, carbide stick
blades and HSS shaper cutters. The result: not only
up to 50 percent higher cutting speeds, but also sig-
nificantly higher tool service life, with both wet and dry
machining. “This shows that BALINIT ALTENSA sets
new performance standards for gear cutting and makes
it possible to achieve previously unknown tool service
lifetimes, as well as a significantly improved level of pro-
cess reliability at higher cutting speeds. For the user this
means: more performance and reduced manufacturing
costs,” summed up Wolfgang Kalss.