Computer aided system for selection of the high-speed steels and heat treatment technology synthesis of the tools

The significant variety of high-speed steels makes the problem of their proper usage very important. To this end a system has been developed to assist the synthesis of the proper technology for high-speed steels. The system offers assistance for numerous classes of users including manufacturing engineers designing new manufacturing processes, tool designers, scientific workers and students, etc. The system is a flexible one, being designed so that in future it may contain data about other classes of materials as well: the data acquisition and presentation module may be left intact. The system in its present state contains two sub-systems, the root system employed to handle the data being accessed by either of the dedicated sub-systems, in this case by the high-speed steels sub-system. The problem of selection of the proper high-speed steel for a given application lies in the abundant number of their makes, differing properties and relatively complex heat and thermochemical treatment. The problem of a proper selection of the right steel for a given tool is only partially solved by choosing one with apparently adequate properties, as they may not be obtained if the proper technology should not be employed. Numerous aspects of tool design influence the tool technology, making it impractical to use heat treatment and thermochemical treatment data extracted simply from the appropriate tables. Deep knowledge of the properties of the high-speed steels and of the conditions for their proper usage — being intricately interdependent — is not common amongst their users so that guidance in this field is imperative. The system enables a user to obtain information about the properties of all of the makes of steel available and about their applicability for given classes of tasks. It is possible to synthesise a proper heat treatment technology for a steel chosen to make a given tool. Several classes of system printouts are built in.