Intermetallic blades for fabric cutting. CRADA final report

Abstract

This report describes the evaluation of nickel- and iron-aluminide blades for cutting fabric as opposed to conventional steel blades. The aluminides were selected as blade material because of their extremely high work-hardening rate and the possibility of forming aluminum oxide on the surface to further enhance the wear resistance. Unlike steel blades, they do not require heat treating to become strong. A testing facility using an Eastman cutter was designed and built at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) for testing of blades. Denim fabric supplied by Levi Strauss was used. For lack of sufficient fabric, heavy paper was also used. Extensive testing revealed that there were several issues in getting the true comparison between various blades. The most important issue was the consistent sharpening of the blade edge. With all of the effort and precautions, identical edges could not be put on the blades of all the different materials. The second issue was the limited availability of fabric to evaluate the end-of-life limit for the blade edges. Two nickel- and three iron-aluminide compositions were evaluated. Under test conditions, the iron-aluminide alloy (PM-60), based on FeAl, was found to outperform other aluminides and the steel blade. Based on the data presented in this report, the authors recommend that additional testing be carried out on both the steel and aluminide blades to determine the number of times each blade can be sharpened prior to its replacement. However, the recommended testing needs to be conducted on blades for which the identical cutting edges and sharpening are incorporated. They further recommend that if the iron-aluminide blade is truly superior, a cost analysis be performed to determine its commercial feasibility. The best aluminide blades should be tested by commercial textile companies.