The DrilLife Group Scientific and Technical Center together with several international institutes are implementing a project to create super hard materials for drill bit cutters.
It is planned that it will be able to compete with imported products, reducing the cost of drill bits production and become a breakthrough for other industries – construction, mining, instrumentation. The first promising samples of new super hard materials have already been obtained.
Ideal material for the bits is a diamond, it is the hardest substance. At the same time, it has a number of significant drawbacks – the diamond is a fragile material and requires a colossal pressure of 60,000 atmospheres (6 GPa) and a temperature of 1500-1700 degrees Celsius for its production. In addition, it is impossible to mechanically process a diamond with anything other than diamond, so it is very expensive and labor-intensive to produce from it.
The DrilLife Group Science and Technology Center is developing new super hard materials that by properties should not yield much to hardness and fracture toughness of a diamond, but would be much cheaper in production (synthesized at lower pressures or temperatures).