Molds are tool products with large usage and wide influence in the manufacturing industry. Without cavity molds, die-casting molds, casting molds, deep drawing dies and stamping dies, it is impossible to produce plastic parts, alloy die-castings, steel plate parts and forgings that are widely used and have competitive prices. In modern mass production, without high-level molds, there will be no high-quality products. It also plays an important role in improving production efficiency and reducing production costs for enterprises. According to the latest statistics and analysis from abroad, 75% of the rough processing of metal parts, 50% of the fine processing, and 90% of plastic parts are completed by mold processing. Therefore, the mold industry is also known as the "crown industry". Nowadays, mold manufacturing has become an important component of advanced manufacturing technology.

The materials used for manufacturing molds are usually a type of difficult-to-machine materials. Currently, the cavities of molds in China are generally formed by electrical discharge machining (EDM). However, the production efficiency of electrical discharge machining is very low. Whether in terms of the speed of mold development or the quality of mold manufacturing, it cannot meet the requirements of modern mass production.

The emergence of high-speed processing technology has opened up a brand-new path for mold manufacturing technology. It is an inevitable trend to replace electrical processing with high-speed machining as much as possible to accelerate the speed of mold development and improve the quality of mold manufacturing.

The main advantages of high-speed machining are:

The product quality is excellent - High-speed cutting processes parts at a cutting speed about ten times higher than the conventional cutting speed. The remaining material of the blank is cut off from the workpiece in an instant before it has enough time to fully deform, and the residual stress on the workpiece surface is very small. The vast majority of the heat generated during the cutting process (over 95%) is rapidly carried away by the chips, resulting in minimal thermal deformation of the workpiece. During high-speed machining, the machine tool spindle operates at an extremely high speed (10,000 to 80,000 r/min), and the excitation frequency is far away from the natural frequency range of the "machine tool - tool - workpiece" system, ensuring a smooth and shock-free processing of the parts. Therefore, the processing accuracy of the parts is high, the surface quality is good, and the roughness can reach more than Ra 0.6μm. The surface quality of the cavity that has undergone high-speed milling can reach the level of grinding, so many subsequent finishing processes can often be omitted.

High production efficiency - When processing molds with high-speed Machining centers or high-speed milling machines, the rough and finish machining of the cavity and the mechanical processing of other parts of the mold can be completed in One clamping of the workpiece, which is the so-called "One Pass Machining" technology. The cutting speed is very high, and the efficiency of the processing process itself is several times higher than that of electrical machining. In addition, it neither requires electrodes nor subsequent manual grinding and polishing, and it is also easy to achieve automated processing. Therefore, the application of high-speed processing technology has greatly increased the development speed of molds.

Development prospects

High-speed machining features high processing accuracy, excellent surface quality and high production efficiency. It has a very good application effect in the mold industry, and traditional electrical discharge machining processes cannot match it. It fully conforms to the development direction of modern manufacturing technology of "high efficiency, high precision and high automation", and has broad application prospects.