HARD ALLOY STEPS

Hard alloys that were invented in Germany some 76 years ago are now widely applied in toolmaking throughout the world. At the moment, Ukrainian companies make most of their drilling, drawing, and cutting tools of hard alloys. Shaping tools made of hard al



HARD ALLOY STEPS

Vladimir BONDARENKO, Institute for Material Science under the Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences

Hard alloys that were invented in Germany some 76 years ago are now widely applied in toolmaking throughout the world. At the moment, Ukrainian companies make most of their drilling, drawing, and cutting tools of hard alloys. Shaping tools made of hard alloys account for a significant portion of the total. There has been a sharp unswing in consumption of hard alloys for construction of high-pressure equipment to synthesize superhard substances.

Widespread application of hard alloys in various industrial branches backs high industrial potential of the country. This is why nearly all countries worldwide have set up home mills to manufacture hard alloys. Even such small countries as Bulgaria, Romania, the Czech Republic and Finland produce their own hard alloys.

In 1991 Ukraine consumed up to 1,700 tonnes of hard alloys, only 550 tonnes of which were made at local facilities. The rest of hard alloys was imported from the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan.

Ukraine’s industrial output has plunged eight to tenfold owing to ravaging crises of the past years. Output of hard alloys was subject to a similar recession. Meanwhile, consumption has gone only 2-2.5 times down. This means that imports took the first lane. Representatives of MKTS, KZTS, Sandvic and other foreign firms have been actively selling hard-alloy articles at dumping prices recently. As a result, Ukrainian manufacturers of hard alloys have found themselves in a troublesome situation. Svetlovodsk Hard Alloy and Refractory Metal Works, one of the principal manufacturers, went out of business and was split up into three small-size enterprises. However, this measure failed to avert further recession because all the equipment, communications, and auxiliary facilities of the bog enterprise were designed for large-scale production and the new enterprises were unable to reclaim the positions lost. These new small enterprises are now suffering through transition to small-scale production.

Hard alloy-producing workshops of large machine building and toolmaking plants are in a difficult situation too. Some of them function only several days a month, while the others have completely ceased operations.

Production of hard alloys at Alkon concern of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine has turned out to be most steadfast in the crisis turmoil. The company survived the crisis having undergone a number of transformations (this enterprise changed from the Pilot Plant into the Institute for Superhard Materials under the Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences, with the Institute later on becoming the independent state-owned scientific and production enterprise Alkon-Tverdosplav). Using scientific developments of the Institute for Superhard Materials of the National Academy of Sciences, this enterprise has set up its own production of hard-alloy mixes made of recycled materials, introduced manufacturing of high-ductility shockproof hard alloys for drilling, pinching and upsetting tools. It has launched output of friction clutches’ components made of tungsten-free КHN15PR, КHN28PR, and КHN35PR hard alloys and WN15Gr2, WN15Gr4, WN20Gr2, and WN20Gr4 composites. The enterprise has arranged stable output of various-purpose tool and structural articles, up to 420 mm in diameter and up to 450 mm high, made of the new-generation tungsten-nickel (WN) hard alloys, which have about as nice performance as tungsten-cobalt hard alloys and enjoy additional specific features, namely nonmagnetic, weak-magnetic or unsusceptible to radiation induced. Alkon has also introduced various types of agglomerating processes, e.g. in hydrogen, in hydrogen and methane gas mediums, and in vacuum.

Owing to broad technological opportunities, stable high quality of products and quick response to challenges on the market for hard-alloy articles and raw materials, Alkon-Tverdosplav has managed to hold out on its market and even to expand business in Ukraine and abroad, e.g. in Israel, Poland, and the Baltic States. Alkon-Tverdosplav truly strengthened its grounds after merging with public joint-stock company Material-Progress. This merger expanded outputs, reduced overheads (and, consequently, lowered prices), and resolved the staffing problems. Alkon-Tverdosplav intends to further pursue its policy of merging small-size manufacturers of hard alloys into a single production space. This will help the enterprise fully utilize the available equipment and increase productivity per unit of production space without having to hire more workers.

Due to its close contacts with the Institute for Superhard Materials under the National Academy of Sciences, Alkon-Tverdosplav can plan further implementation of novel technologies, such as gas carbidization of high-temperature and low-temperature WC tungsten carbides and TiC-WC hard solutions, compression sintering of nonporous hard alloys with different degrees of core carbide cementation, as well as combined methane-hydrogen agglomeration.

All the above-mentioned facts illustrate that Alkon-Tverdosplav has survived the dangerous period and is now actively progressing on.

Hard-alloy shops of manufacturing plants, which have commenced recovering their outputs, can get a new life. This statement fully relates to shops at Kharkov-based Malyshev Machine Building Plant, Yuzhnyi Machine Building Plant, Korolyov Association of Kiev city, Fotomash state-owned scientific-production enterprise, and others.

Therefore, Ukraine still has an opportunity to retain and develop its own hard-alloy sector. What’s more, in October 1999 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved “The Complex program for development of Ukrainian nonferrous metallurgy till 2010”, which gives numerous provisions for development of hard-alloy sector. Now everything depends on allocation of budget funding and on in-house resources of enterprises that are needed to execute the scheduled research & development works and take organizational and technical steps to arm the sector with up-to-date equipment. By executing this program, by 2010 Ukraine will be able to create its own home reserves of raw materials using imported ore concentrates and artificial materials, launch a revolutionary environment-friendly production of semi-finished articles (e.g. oxides, carbides, nitrides, and carbo-nitrides), and modern manufacturing of hard-alloy articles that will be competitive on both domestic and foreign markets.

Preserving and developing its hard-alloy sector, Ukraine will manage to save significant amounts of foreign exchange and spend the saved resources not only on advancement of hard-alloy production, but also on stable development of the fuel and power complex, which is the key to rapid recovery of hard-alloy sector.

The program envisions that Ukraine will consume around 1,600 tonnes of hard alloys and hard alloy-based composite materials in 2010. It is provided to manufacture most of these substances at Ukrainian facilities.

To attain this goal, it is scheduled to use idle production space of Volnogorsk Ore Mining and Concentrating Works and of public joint-stock company Electroceramica of Belaya Tserkov town. Besides, productive capacity of Alkon-Tverdosplav will be doubled, while equipment of hard-alloy shops at large machine-building and toolmaking plants will be renewed. There will be introduced manufacturing of automatic presses for hard-alloy sector; furnaces to produce semi-finished articles in methane-hydrogen surrounding and to compress-sinter billets; machines for precision finishing of hard-alloy products.

Fulfillment of this program will not only save foreign currency and supply domestic mechanical engineering, mining, and metalmaking with high-quality hard alloys, but it would also give a considerable number of new jobs, provoke scientific research on hard alloys and boost exports of semis, hard-alloy articles, and machinery for their production to the CIS, European, and Southeast Asian countries. That is why execution of this program has to be constantly monitored by the State Committee for Industrial Policy, Committee for Geology and Mining of Ukraine, State Committee for Science and Intellectual Property, and National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Year on year, the Cabinet will adopt top-priority measures within the program’s framework.

Thus, it is possible to state that the depression is left behind. Now it’s time to move ahead and the coming ten years will be decisive for the future of Ukrainian hard-alloy sector.

the Metal

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