Tungsten carbide is categorized in cemented carbide, which is belongs to metal matrix composites. The hardness and brittleness properties are exactly its pros and cons. Since its extremely hardness (about 9 or 9.5), it is considered to be excellent cutting tools. Also the great wear resistance and relative low cost than other advanced materials with the same hardness like aluminum and sapphire makes it suitable for stamping and punching die in precision machinery. Applied in various types of dies and tools that can assist precise components manufacturing, tungsten carbide has been honored to be “the tooth for the industry.”

While tungsten carbide is an excellent material for tools and dies that can shape other advanced materials, on the other hand, it is regarded as the “hard to cut “material since its extreme hardness that rare materials can be compared. It is a nightmare when utilizing conventional CNC method to process tungsten carbide.
The stable extreme hardness is a challenge to cutting tools and it usually requires diamond grinding or using diamond-coated tools to deal with. Therefore, the limitation for tools results in higher cost consumption for manufacturers.  
 
There is another common solution for tungsten carbide machining. With its electrical conductivity, some adopts electrical discharge method (EDM) to eroge excessive materials and achieve hi-quality precision machining in tungsten carbide. Though EDM is an advanced method to process cemented carbide, the low efficiency and high equipment cost are two main difficulties that interrupt manufactures from introducing this technology. Till now, most of the manufacturers still apply CNC method with special tools, and the machining problems mentioned above have occurred repeatedly.

 
We will discuss about three different kinds of features in tungsten carbide machining and compare the machining results between the most common way and HIT ultrasonic machining solution.
 
If you know little about HIT ultrasonic machining, here brings a short introduction for HIT ultrasonic machining module:
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The Ultrasonic Machining Module of Hantop Intelligence Tech. unlike other ultrasonic machining machine, it adopts unique plug and play design that can be installed on various CNC machine as well as robot arms. Which can save the space, equipment cost, and even introduction time compared to whole machine introduction.
 
The module type contains all advantages with ultrasonic vibrations. Within dense and subtle vibrations passing from tool holder to tool edge, it can reduce cutting resistance to 40% and prevent serious impact generated from cutting heat as well as micro-crack form smashing, so that the tool life, quality, and efficiency will be enhanced at the same time.
 
Non- Contact Power Transmission and Automatic Tracking System are two other spotlights. With the same principle as mobile wireless power transmission, the non-contact power transmission will leave a little gap from tool holder, so that there is no need for consumables and it also has no limitation in rotation speed. Those advantages allow non-contact power transmission technology carry forwards the achievements from ultrasonic machining. Automatic Tracking System can track and lock the most suitable resonance between tools and our modules, enabling consumers back to the production within only day.
 
 
 

Tungsten carbide mold machining compared to EDM
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The request of this case contains a “h” shape feature and threading machining on the left side. It is time-consuming to EDM to process threading feature since it removes excessive materials by eroding the upper layers repeatedly. And it requires subsequent CNC machining procedure to refine the artifact.
 
We combined our ultrasonic machining module with conventional CNC machine and discovered great improvement through process time and quality.
The ultrasonic high frequency vibrations effectively enhanced the quality from CNC machining and reach clients’ acceptance. Moreover, without the procedure for eroding materials, The CNC side-added on ultrasonic machining module can be a turn-key project for producing artifact once in place. The total process time saved to 4 times in the end.
 
 
Tungsten carbide mirror polishing compared to conventional CNC and polishing
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Regarding to mirror polishing in tungsten carbide machining, the first thought popped out will be mechanical polishing or manual polishing. In this case, we challenged ourselves to produce final artifact without polishing in using conventional CNC method assisted with our ultrasonic machining module.
 
In normal condition, it will leave deep scratches and even micro-crack on the surface since tools directly crashes to the hard materials. And through high frequency ultrasonic vibrations, it will disperse the cutting resistance into numeral vibrations, thus, it will get shallower trace and relative smoother texture on the machined surface. With the assistant of ultrasonic, we achieved mirror plane standard (RA<0.002) at last and had no need for changing tools as well as any subsequent procedure, greatly saving the process time and cost. 
 
As those cases above, we could learn that ultrasonic is not only can be applied in cleaning machining but for machining. The dense and subtle vibration on the Z axis
direction is poised to average the excessive power and cutting heat that works on the brittle materials, so that the quality, tool life, and even efficiency can be improved.
 
Hantop Intelligence Tech. is a company that contributed to solve advanced materials machining problems. Not only we introduced ultrasonic machining technology into module type to make it has more flexible application, but also we create lots of thoughtful design that exactly for advanced materials machining, such as CTO to effective coolant Inconel or industrial plastics materials and Non-contact transmission to keep the high rotation speed. If you have advanced materials machining tasks, we’ll be the best solution that worth you to take it a try.

Contact us for complete ultrasonic machining solution.
What’s the specialties of HIT Ultrasonic Machining Module?
How can HIT Ultrasonic machining technology work in new materials machining?  
Application cases validated with HIT Ultrasonic Machining Module