Sumitomo Adds Drill Tip for Drilling Aluminum

Sumitomo is expanding its existing SMD Replaceable Tip Drilling line with new SMDT-NAL drill tips. SMDT-NAL features the proprietary Diamond-like Carbon DLC ‘Aurora’ Coating. These replaceable drill tips are suitable for machining aluminum alloys and non-ferrous materials. SMD holders include deep-hole drilling up to 12 XD standard and the SMDT drill tip lineup offers diameters ranging from fractional sizes ¹⁵/₃₂ to 1¹/₄.

DLC ‘Aurora’ Coating is an amorphous film mainly composed of carbon with lubricity and chemical stability. It is said to feature high hardness, superior tribology properties and excellent adhesion resistance. DLC films are used as a coating for cutting tools for aluminum alloys.

Sumitomo is committed to developing new tools for the automotive, aerospace and energy industries. Replaceable tip drilling (SMDT-NAL), solid carbide drilling with DLC coating (MDW-NHGS) and DLC-coated indexable
inserts (WDX) round out the lineup for aluminum holemaking.

Key benefits of these products include the smooth coating surface, which results in stable chip evacuation; the aluminum welding resistance; a hardness of 60 GPa for abrasion resistance and increased penetration rates caused by low friction coefficient. All these benefits allow users to machine with two to three times higher feed rates than uncoated drills, according to Sumitomo.