Cellimpact is the patent owner of a cutting edge machine technology that can be used to shape and shear material by using high kinetic energy. The energy is transferred into the material by an impact generating an extreme pressure within a fraction of a second, providing new opportunities in terms of e.g. improved quality for a wide area of applications.
The Cellimpact High Velocity Impact Technology was originally developed to be capable of producing impacts up to 15m/s, letting users also gain access to the potentials of the adiabatic phenomenon.
The main challenge with this is not to obtain the correct velocity, that is possible with various technologies, but to do it efficiently and to be able to repeat the process 20,000,000 times per year without any re-bounces or change in energy.
At the same time we use fairly traditional base technologies that are proven and known in the manufacturing community, this to facilitate the use and service. The ambition with this is not only to increase quality and give new opportunities, but also to keep low life cycle cost.
The Cellimpact machine technology is basically a hydraulic cylinder that can be accelerated to high speed in a very short distance. The use of this hydraulic cylinder is limited by physics, tool house and tool design, but today we are mostly referring to embossing, cutoff, blanking, piercing and compacting, since this is our first priority.
When the piston has hit the tool, the piston is brought back to its exact original position and is ready for another impact. The complete impact cycle time, i.e. from original position, acceleration down, impact and back up into ready position, depends on size of piston and impact length, but generally it is accomplished in 100 to 300 milliseconds.
Adiabatic phenomenon in short
The so called adiabatic method has been known since the 1940s (or maybe earlier) and during the 60s and 70s a vast number of companies and organisations performed research and development work to try to control a process capable of producing in the velocities needed.
The theory is that when a metal is subject to a high speed impact and therefore is given a concentrated energy pulse, for a fraction of a second the material becomes soft, due to temperature concentrations in a narrow and limited zone. During this short time a solid metal can be formed, cut, pierced or compacted, but also a metal powder or other materials such as graphite can be compacted.
The work is done with the metal in cold state, i.e. the formed plate or cut bar is cold before and after it’s been processed.
However, it is assumed that an extremely brief and localised heating occurs in the, e.g., surface of the cut, but this heat is not transferred (adiabatic) to the rest of the material that consequentially keeps its original properties.
This should give the processing advantages of heated forming and material advantages of cold forming, cutting, blanking and compaction.
(Cellimpact´s expertise is in the High Velocity Impact technology and not in the theory of the adiabatic phenomenon, therefore the above is only a short introduction and according to our understanding)
