Cryogenic Machining at MAG Industrial Automation

MAG Industrial Automation put out a press release discussing their revolutionary cryogenic machining process. They claim that by cooling the tool and material with liquid nitrogen in a ‘through spindle’ technique, is able to increase tool life, decrease lubrication needs, and increase material removal rates. An excerpt from the VP of Engineering describes the benefits in more details.

…60 percent speed increases in milling CGI with carbide, and up to four times using PCD (Polycrystalline Diamond) tooling. With the addition of MQL, we tripled speeds with carbide, but showed no further benefit to the fourfold increase with PCD

Sounds great but you would think cost would be an issue. MAG says it should still be very competitive, without even mentioning the increase in productivity.

Cost-wise, cryogenic machining becomes even more competitive when you consider it’s a non-issue environmentally. There is no mist collection, filtration, wet chips, contaminated workpieces or disposal cost, and certainly less energy consumption without all the pumps, fans and drives that go into handling coolant.

The report even shows a graph displaying the tool life with regards to ‘in-cut’ time and speed/min. Once this Navy funded process goes live worldwide, we might be see a shift in manufacturing techniques worldwide. Should be exciting!

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