Diamond tools have a wide range of applications in industry, and have become an important tool product. Diawe Tools summarizes the following 4 applications.
Diamond Tools for Cutting Stone
Stone, as an important building material, is an essential part of building construction and municipal engineering. Among them, granite and marble have a huge storage capacity, and the emergence of diamond tools has brought tremendous technological changes to the stone processing industry.
The mining of stone mainly includes quarry mining, cutting of stone blocks, polishing of stone slabs, and cutting of stone slabs, etc.
In the early 20th century, manual drilling and explosive blasting were the main methods used in mining. However, the utilization rate of stone resources was very low. Starting from the mid-20th century, diamond wire saws and wire saw equipment began to enter quarries, resulting in high stone mining efficiency and utilization.
The stone blocks extracted from mines need to be cut again, usually using two cutting methods: steel sand saw and large-sized diamond circular saw blade. In addition, for marble, in addition to using large-sized diamond circular saw blades, diamond frame saws are also used for cutting.
The cut stone slabs need to enter the polishing process, the main tools are diamond polishing tools. After polishing, the thickness of the stone slab is about 1.7~2.5cm.
The polished stone slab is finally cut into the required size using a small-sized diamond circular saw blade.
From this, it can be seen that during the entire process of manufacturing stone blocks into the required slab size, except for some granite slabs cut with steel sand saws, all other processing uses diamond tools. According to statistics, the global annual stone production is about 1.5 billion square meters (counted as 2cm thick stone slabs), and such a huge production capacity corresponds to a huge demand for diamond tools.
This is an important industry application of diamond tools.
Diamond Tools for Geological Exploration and Oil & Gas Well Drilling
There are various geological deposits worldwide, including metals, oil and gas, coal, etc. The exploration of these deposits cannot be separated from diamond geological drill bits. For example, in the 1980s, China consumed nearly 200,000pcs geological diamond drill bits.
Geological diamond drill bits have been used in conjunction with exploration drilling rigs, which can meet the exploration needs of various rock formations. In terms of oil and gas well drilling, although diamond tools started relatively late in the manufacturing of PDC drilling bits, they have developed rapidly since the 1990s and can meet the needs of drilling in soft to medium-hard formations. In addition, PDC drilling bits are inexpensive, and diamond bits are widely used in oil field exploitation around the world.
According to statistics, in 2003, approximately $150 million of PDC drilling bits were used globally, which increased to $200 million in 2007. In 2008, the usage of PDC drill bits reached 30,000pcs.
Diamond Tools for the Semiconductor Industry
Valuable materials such as semiconductors, magnetic materials, superconducting materials, electronic packaging materials, and optical communication materials have high precision requirements and hardness, and also require diamond tools for manufacturing.
For example, the entire machining process from silicon ingots to chips requires diamond tools. The following table shows the main machining processes and required diamond tools for silicon wafer production lines.
| the Main Manufacturing Processes of Silicon Wafer Production Line and the Required Diamond Tools | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturing Processes | ① | ② | ③ | ④ | ⑤ | ⑥ | ⑦ | ⑧ |
| Single Crystal Ingot Truncation | Grinding Outer Circle of Ingots | Section of Crystal Ingot | Wafer Chamfering | Wafer Precision Grinding | Wafer Chemical Mechanical Polishing | Wafer Thinning Grinding | Scratch | |
| Diamond Tools | Cutting Saw Blades for Inner Cycle or Outer Cycle | Diamond Grinding Wheel | Electroplated Inner Circular Saw Blade, Electroplated Rope Saw | Groove Grinding Wheel | Cup Shaped Grinding Wheel, Surface Grinding | Electroplating Trimmer, Brazing Trimmer, or PCD Trimmer | Flat Grinding Wheel, Cup Shaped Grinding Wheel, Surface Grinder | Electroplated Saw Blade, Resin Bonded Saw Blade |
The characteristics of these diamond tools are high precision, thin thickness, good rigidity, and good machining sharpness. Only a few countries such as the United States, Japan, South Korea, and China can produce these tools.
Diamond rope saw is a new type of precision cutting tool mainly used for slicing silicon rods and sapphire crystal rods. Compared to the previous use of free abrasive slicing, there are many advantages.
- The first point is that the slicing efficiency has increased by 2-3 times.
- The second point is that the material utilization rate has increased by 20% -30%.
- The third point is that the slicing quality has been improved, reducing the thickness of the metamorphic layer.
- The fourth point is that only water is used for slicing, without mud, greatly reducing environmental pollution.
The manufacturing technology of this diamond rope saw is difficult, requiring the use of resin or metal as a binder on steel ropes ranging from 0.12 to 0.15mm, uniformly and firmly solidifying diamond particles with a diameter of 15-35 μ m. From the discharge wheel to the collection wheel, automated consolidation and continuous production with a length of tens of thousands of meters can be achieved, and the final rope diameter tolerance is less than 0.005mm.
It can be seen that the manufacturing technology of this diamond rope saw is extraordinary.
Diamond Tools for Construction Engineering Industry
The cutting of concrete roads, asphalt roads, concrete walls, and polishing of floors are common requirements in municipal engineering construction and factory building. This also requires the extensive use of diamond tools, and many well-known architectural diamond tool brands have emerged internationally, such as Hiliti and Husqvarna.
Due to the presence of steel bars in concrete and the high grindability of concrete, the material condition of each cutting layer is different, which poses great challenges to the development of diamond tools.
To produce diamond tools for cutting objects of this kind, the welding requirements for segments are very high, which is why laser welding technology was used. Secondly, the impact resistance, rigidity, and wear resistance of diamond segments are higher than those of conventional diamond segments.
Sometimes, in order to complete assignments better, multiple diamond tools need to be used in combination. For example, floor polishing often requires multiple processes including oxalic acid abrasive, metal diamond abrasive, and resin diamond abrasive.
Of course, diamond tools have many other industrial applications, such as chamfering ceramic tile, glass cutting, and fireproof material cutting, which are also a huge market. Diwe Tools is just listing four common industries here, to give a better understanding of diamond tools.
