HIGH SPEED MACHINING

ABSTRACT

Over the past 60 years, high speed machining (HSM) has been applied to a wide range of

metallic and non-metallic work piece materials including the production of components

with specific topography requirements and machining of materials with hardness of 50

HRC and above.

With most steel components hardened to approximately 32-42 HRC, machining

operations currently include:

Rough machining and semi-finishing of the material

Heat treatment to achieve the final required hardness

Machining of electrodes and electrical discharge machining of specific parts of

the dies or moulds

Finishing and super finishing of surfaces

In leading industrial countries, in die and mould manufacturing, a significant portion of

the lead-time is spent for machining and polishing operations .Therefore the machining

and polishing portion of dies and moulds takes approximately two third of total

manufacturing costs. If the quality level after machining is poor and if cannot meet the

requirements there will be varying need of manual finishing work.

Machining with high speeds (HSM) is one of the modern technologies, which in

comparison with conventional cutting enables to increase efficiency, accuracy and quality

of work pieces and at the same time to decrease costs and machining time.