VBN Components’ cemented carbide wins Best of Industry Award

A hard metal (cemented carbide) produced with new shapes and functions, without sintering or machining. Minimal material waste. A patented alloy that is heat resistant up to at least 750°C. After years of research, VBN Components was the first company to succeed with this innovation, that has just won the German “Best of Industry Award”.

 Swedish VBN Components develops new materials with extreme wear and heat resistance, produced with 3D printing. For more than a decade the company has been pioneering the metal industry. The latest innovation, the cemented carbide Vibenite® 480, was awarded on June 25^th with the German “Best of Industry Award” in the category of additive manufacturing. The magazine and organiser MM Maschinenmarkt broadcasted an online ceremony from Würzburg online price ceremony from Würzburg.

The Vibenite® 480 alloy is extremely heat and wear resistant, and also corrosion resistant. The fact that it is produced by additive manufacturing / 3D printing is absolutely ground-breaking. It enables complex shapes for industrial tools and components and reduces environmental impact to an absolute minimum.

Germany is a very important market for us, and we are delighted to receive this award in this heavy competition. The company vision is to renew the materials industry in the world by developing materials that offer uniqueness and improved industrial performance, and the Best of Industry Award is a great recognition to our achievement, says Ulrik Beste, CTO of VBN Components.

 Increased productivity and reduced environmental impact

 Vibenite® 480 is based on metal powder produced through large scale industrial gas atomisation. This minimises both cost and environmental impact. The new material combines the toughness of powder metallurgy high speed steels (PM-HSS) with the heat resistance of cemented carbides, which is why this new group of materials is named hybrid carbides.

Within 3D printing it was always a wish to produce alloys with high carbide content. VBN Components has proved that they definitely master this technique, as the only company world-wide. Their Vibenite® 480 has a carbide content of ~65% but is still tougher than regular cemented carbides and therefore suitable for more complex details. Typical applications for Vibenite® 480 are cutting tools for milling, drilling and gear cutting, which require good wear resistance at high temperatures combined with good toughness. The 3D printing process opens up completely new possibilities in the design of the tools.

Vibenite® 480 is also suitable for all components that are subject to high wear, such as pump components, nozzles, and baffle plates. – An ideal alternative to hard metals or wear-resistant alloys. Thanks to the 3D printing process, the components can rapidly be produced in near-net-shape. The design options of 3D printing offer new approaches to make components even more wear resistant. 3D printed cutting tools or wear components can be manufactured with very short lead times, which opens for many new approaches to build, test and improve prototypes and finally take the optimised component or cutting tool to serial production.

VBN Components in brief

 VBN Components AB is a Swedish materials development company, founded in 2008. The brand name Vibenite® stands for extreme wear resistance, heat resistance and complex shapes. The Vibenite® materials are patented and give high-performance products, improving the competitiveness of the engineering industry. The company sells metal tools and components in near-net-shape according to customer drawings, as well as license solutions. The products are manufactured directly from powder through 3D printing. The company has won numerous innovation awards, among which the SKAPA Award in memory of Alfred Nobel. VBN is an alumnus from Uppsala Innovation Centre, ranked as the world’s 5^th best business incubator according to UBI Global. In 2017 VBN launched the world’s hardest steel and in 2018 the world’s first 3D printed cemented carbide. www.vbncomponents.com