A cut above the rest

Aerospace Manufacturing and BCI Aerospace together profile world-class aerospace industry suppliers of note.
Established in 1920 and located in Annecy, near Geneva, Diamoutils initially began by serving the bearing manufacturing industry by specialising in diamond tooling for grinding applications.

By the start of the 1970s, the company had made inroads into polycrystalline diamond tools (PCD) and cubical boron nitride (CBN) cutting tools to satisfy the manufacturing industry's insatiable appetite for high performance cutting tools to machine hard steels and exotic alloys. At this time, high speed steel (HSS) tools were used for machining aluminium, whilst tungsten carbide tooling was primarily used for machining hard steels. However, tool life tended to be too short and metal cutting performance unsatisfactory.

Diamoutils realised that the introduction of PCD and CBN tooling would help bring its customers increased improvements in tool life; a trend borne out by the automotive industry, which at this time, was gradually moving away from carbide tools in favour of CBN and PCD solutions that improved both the lifetime and the performance of the cutting tools for mass car production.

Initially, Diamoutils developed tooling solely for the automotive industry, but by 1975, had diversified into developing solutions for civil and military aerospace applications. Its first partnership was with Dassault Aviation for various Mirage jet fighter components, such as carbon fibre components for wing spars and ribs as well as hard chrome grinding of landing gear items. Diamoutils also developed tooling applications for the space industry, producing a patent to produce PCD drills to machine carbon fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) and ceramic materials for Dassault and Aerospatiale's Hermes spaceplane project.

Conscious of the increasing evolutionary developments in PCD and CBN tools, the start of the 1990s saw carbide cutting tool suppliers looking to diversify their product offerings by manufacturing PCD and CBN tooling too. Among them is Diamoutils, which has grown to become one of the leading exponents of precision diamond tooling, PCD, CBN inserts for milling, turning, grooving and threading, as well as brazed PCD and CBN boring bars.

According to Diamoutils, there are many new cutting tool application developments under way today; the machining of material ‘stacks' including CFRP, titanium, aluminium and even inconel is one such example. Another involves aero engine manufacture and the latest innovations connected with new types of CFRP turbine blades. Blades of this construction are far lighter and provide improved performance in terms of the aircraft engine's fuel efficiency. Diamoutils has developed a combination of grinding and cutting processes that offer optimum machining solutions. In addition, environmental and health issues are driving customers to replace conventional hard chrome coatings with high velocity oxygen fuel (HVOF) coatings. Once again, Diamoutils has engineered methods with which to grind these materials that are chiefly used on main shafts for landing gear assemblies.

Face to face at Aeromart

Diamoutils will once again attend BCI Aerospace's Aeromart Toulouse 2010 international business convention for aerospace, space and defence. This event assembles the entire group of decision makers from companies involved in aerospace in the same location over two days and allows them to interact through business meetings, solution workshops and conferences. Conversely to a normal trade show, attendees participating in Aeromart can enjoy face to face technical meetings, arranged by BCI prior to the event.

Designed to bring together leading subcontractors involved in civilian and defence aerospace, the key benefit of Aeromart is in maintaining the calibre of partnerships through B2B meetings in a proper aerospace engineering environment.

“Before Aeromart appeared we were involved in the Machine Outils trade expo in France,” begins Diamoutils' president and general director, Jean Francois Bucourt. “This would mean renting exhibition stand floorspace that included a show case of tooling products and stand furniture. We would then wait for visitors to pass by. The disadvantage of exhibitions of this size was that the chances of meeting brand new customers were minimal. It was also extremely expensive and meant we were away from the office for anything up to five days.

“When we found out about BCI Aerospace's two-day B2B meetings event, Aeromart Toulouse, its planned meetings concept really interested us. We soon discovered that anyone that had planned to meet us had done so because they were serious about doing business. We agreed to meet them because we knew it would be beneficial to both our company and visitor alike.”
Bucourt adds that Aeromart's size enables exhibitors to host anything between 15-25 scheduled B2B meetings each day.

“The main advantage of Aeromart is that it allows everyone to network, conduct focused discussions and make contacts with the right people within companies that are interested in our product or solution,” he continues. “When I've checked to see how many visitors I've had throughout Aeromart, 50% will continue dialogue with us and 25% will turn out to provide tangible business orders. As a result of BCI's Aerospace & Defence Meetings Torino last year, we met Alenia Aermacchi for the first time and have now begun a firm working partnership with them.”

Bucourt underlines Aeromart's attraction as a truly global event by noting that Diamoutils often meet more overseas customers (through export opportunities) than those that are located in France itself.

“We've met visitors from Sweden, Canada and South Africa: this could only have happened through events like Aeromart Toulouse and other BCI Aerospace events,” he concludes. “I'm impressed with their ability to attract worldwide participants and get everyone together in one place, and when I consider the number of visitors we've meet at Aeromart, the relative cost for this kind of event is extremely competitive in comparison to global exhibitions.”

www.diamoutils.com

Organiser of leading industry events, BCI Aerospace is the advanced business meetings – abe's specialised division for the aeronautics, space and defence sectors.

www.bciaerospace.com