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Content archived on 2024-04-19

SYNTHETIC DIAMOND WIRE FOR STONE CUTTING

Objective

The purpose of this project is to develop a wire with indented parts of synthetic diamond that will permit the cutting of several kinds of stones such as granite, sandstone and slate.
The objectives aimed by this project and the results obtained have been:

Objective A : A yield improvement of 30/40% for granite, and of 40/50% for the slate.

Results: a yield improvement of 33% for granite and 93% for slate.

Objective B : Achieving a cutting speed increase of 20%.

Results: an increase of 15% for granite and 75% for slate.

Objective C : A decrease in the current manufacturing costs of 35%.

Results: by sensibly increasing the productivity, decreasing the rejections, at the same time that the lifetime of Cold-Press matrices and graphite sintering moulds has also been increased, it can be concluded that the manufacturing costs have been reduced by approximately 25-30%

Objective D : Reduction in the number of failures in the wire

Results: the improvements carried out in the manufacturing of the wire, both in the bead as well as in the adequate choice of the best cable and in the optimization of the plastification process together with a better knowledge of the using conditions of the tool, has allowed us to achieve a reduction on the number of mendings of 50-60%.

Objective E : Recycling of the residual diamond particles

Results: objective 100% fulfilled

Objective F : Reducing the global cost for the user in over 50%

Results: in January 1992, the average price for a meter of diamond wire for granite or slate was 26,000 pesetas. At the time being, the price is around 18,000 pesetas, which means a 31% price reduction for the user.

Taking into account that the yield in the tool has increased by 33% granite, and by 93% for slate, we may conclude that the final cost has been reduced by 45% for granite and 66% for slate.
This kind of tool has been succesfully applied with marble, but the performance with other stones, which are the target of this research is not high enough as these stones are harder or more abrasive than marble. The elements forming the cable are of steel, synthetic diamond and plastic material to fix the diamond stones to the cable. To apply a wire to the referred stones, all elements that make the wire must be developed :

- new steel cables must be studied
- new diamond stones must be found to work with granite and slate type rocks
- a different plastic material is necessary to join the diamonds to the cable and to resist the abrasive powders generated from the cut material.

The final tool could be used in quarries, for extraction and cutting ; stoneyards, for slabbing and squaring blocks ; and in the construction industry.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Programme(s)

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Call for proposal

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Funding Scheme

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Coordinator

SUMI-ROC
EU contribution
No data
Address
Avenida de Madrid 81
24005 LEON
Spain

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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

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Participants (11)

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