The indexable drilling feature in Third Wave Systems' finite element analysis software, AdvantEdge, is designed to help customers better understand their processes by providing not only forces and chip shape results, but also stresses and temperatures throughout the cutting process.
"Throughout the last decade, the cost of raw materials for tungsten carbide has increase by more than six-times, causing the cost of solid carbide tooling to significantly increase," said a company spokesperson. "Within the cost sensitive and increasingly competitive manufacturing industry, the rise in cost has caused a dramatic shift in the marketplace from solid carbide tooling to indexable and removable tip tooling."
In response to the changes, Third Wave Systems has redesigned the AdvantEdge indexable drilling capability. The improvements enable users to import solid geometries from CAD software that include both cutting inserts and cutter bodies. Using the cutting parameters entered into the software, an in-cut workpiece is generated which allows the user to simulate the cutting process.
Kerry Marusich, Third Wave Systems President, said, "The ability to understand current capabilities and test new ideas in a virtual environment will result in significant competitive advantages for our customers in the indexable drilling marketplace."
According to the company, this virtual simulation environment reduces, and sometimes even eliminates, the need for halting production during the prototyping process. The validated, material-specific modeling and physics-based machining calculations within AdvantEdge allow the knowledge-based design and comparison of new tooling.
The Third Wave Systems indexable drilling capability also includes an improvement to the automation of meshing parameters to calculate the parameters based directly on the in-cut chip thickness and incorporating interest overlap. This improvement further automates the set-up process for users, which allows for less set-up time and more time spent analyzing results.
For more information contact:
Third Wave Systems
6475 City West Parkway
Minneapolis, MN 55344
952-832-5515
sales@thirdwavesys.com
www.thirdwavesys.com