High-strength metal-cutting tools are widely in demand at the enterprises of mechanical engineering, the military-industrial complex, the military and aerospace industries, instrument-making and other industries. However, at the moment, Russia does not produce products that are competitive with foreign analogues, so a new innovative development from PSU will be significant for solving this problem.
The original solution is to use the original raw materials, such as heavy alloys based on tungsten carbide and heat-resistant steel, which are placed in an electric arc located in a plasma channel with a temperature reaching up to 12 thousand degrees Celsius. The material is then melted and sprayed using centrifugal forces. The output is a powder with spherical particles, which is the necessary raw material for the manufacture of high-quality metal-cutting tools.
These discoveries will also help in the development of PIM (Powder Injection Molding) technology, which allows the production of complex profiles from finely dispersed polymer mixtures with metal or ceramic fillers. In addition, this method is characterized by a minimum amount of waste material (1-2%).