Steel is deemed to be the most im­por­tant construction material in engineering. Technological, economical, and more and more ecological demands as well lead to increasing requirements for steel components. Very often modern components made of steel need to permanently resist high mechanical loads. Due to their increasing prices, the proper use of alloying elements also gains relevance. These conditions require the application of specifically adapted steels, whereas the machining of such in­no­va­ti­ve steel materials is very challenging, especially in industrial production. Therefore, machining processes have to be optimized, for example with respect to tool-lifetime, part quality and process reliability.

The ISF coordinates a working group focused on the machining of these in­no­va­ti­ve steels in collaboration with partners from re­le­vant sectors of industry and with support of the Chair of Materials Technology of Ruhr Uni­ver­sity Bo­chum. The main goal of the experimental tests conducted and based on the demands of the industrial partners is to combine expert knowledge from different branches of industry in order to investigate current challenges in steel machining. The group is composed of mem­bers from the sectors steel manu­facturing, tool manufacturing, engineering, lubricant production, re­search and development as well as OEM.

With the working group Machining of In­no­va­tive Steels, a cooperative development platform was built, aiming to find fast and efficient solutions for current challenges regarding machining. Exemplary ongoing activities are the machining of high-strength bainitic steels with different microstructures, ESR-steels and stainless steels. Furthermore, the development of new manufacturing processes like the selective laser melting (SLM) and laser metal deposition technique has re­cent­ly created new challenges in the field of near-net-shape machining of additively manufactured workpieces.