Sumitomo Electric has created a domestic recycling system, which completes all recycling processes of precious tungsten in Japan, by collecting scrap tungsten carbide inserts and rotary tools sorted by Toyota and reprocessing them as recycled tungsten carbide products.

Today, more and more super-hard, lightweight materials, such as titanium, Inconel® and new aluminum alloys, are desired in various industrial fields including aerospace, defense, energy, and transport. The hardness of these materials, however, inevitably creates a demand for more accurate and advanced machining, which is the most urgent issue in the metal-working industry in order to achieve a competitive edge in the global market.

Emphasizing environmental issues as one of the most important challenges for our business, Sumitomo Electric will continue to meet customer demands and spare no effort in reducing the environmental impact in all aspects of the life cycle of tungsten carbide tools: production, use, regrinding, and recycling.

The latest model of smart pen looks and feels pretty much like a real, regular pen, and writes that way as well, with tungsten carbide ball as the ballpoint. Customers' average user might not even notice, as the weight and balance are great, and the motion and movement quite good. Filled with a decent cartridge, their Swiss-made tungsten-carbide ballpoint ink flows smoothly. As with all similar smartpens, the only slight annoyance is that you have to use special paper with the system. Fifty sheets are included and you can print or buy additional quite easily. The paper features nearly invisible dots that allow the pen to track exactly where it is on the page.

Unlike prior models, this one transmits them nearly instantly to a nearby device using Bluetooth wireless. Simply pair your iPhone or iPad with the pen, and you know have an instant way to capture and store your handwriting. Pen emails and immediately send them, or have your grocery lists saved for posterity. If you want, you can also convert your scrawls to useful text, using pretty accurate OCR (optical character recognition). We found it to be about 90% accurate, either while using cursive or otherwise- better than we expected! Any iOS 7 device will work, and though Android is not currently supported, the company claims that this model will be have compatibility forthcoming in 2014.

Once upon a time, encountering rock formations during a bore could completely stall an horizontal directional drilling (HDD) operation. Back then, if rock was encountered, bores would be abandoned.

Fast forward to today and a time in which advancements in tooling technology and processes have made rock drilling commonplace and opened a vast market for both HDD contractors and utility service providers.
But even today, the right tools and processes can mean the difference between completing the job and completing it profitably — and there’s a lot of homework to be done before tool selection can begin.

“It’s important to gather as much information as possible about the soil conditions and rock formations along the bore path before you ever start,” says Sharewell HDD president Greg Wilson. He encourages contractors to take core samples, test the hardness of the rock and map formation changes on the bore plan, “so the driller will know when he’ll be entering and leaving different formations,” he says.

Additionally, make sure you have the right rig for the job. For the tooling to work as designed, it must be powered by a drilling rig with enough thrust and torque to turn the tooling properly and cut the hole efficiently. A proper drilling fluid program is also critical, as fluid must be pumped at a higher volume during rock bores in order to both clean the hole and provide the hydraulic power to operate some types of downhole equipment.

Allegheny Technologies Inc., on November 4, 2013, completed the sale of its tungsten materials business to Latrobe, PA-based wear-resistant products company Kennametal Inc. (KMT) for $605 million. The business unit, which produces tungsten powder, tungsten heavy alloys, tungsten carbide materials and tungsten carbide cutting tools, generated $338.6 million of total net revenues and $37.2 million of operating profit for the year ended Dec 31, 2012.

Allegheny Technologies Inc. originally had three main business segments: Flat-Rolled Products, High Performance Metals and Engineered Products. However, the company, in October 2013, announced the restructuring of its Engineered Products segment, including the integration of the specialty steel forgings business into ATI Ladish's forgings operations in the High Performance Metals division and the integration of the precision titanium and specialty alloy flat-rolled finishing business into ATI Allegheny Ludlum's specialty plate business in the Flat-Rolled Products segment. Other businesses that comprised the Engineered Products division have been classified as discontinued operations and include the tungsten materials business and the iron castings and fabricated components businesses.

Allegheny decided to divest its tungsten materials business so that it can focus more on its core businesses High Performance Metals and Flat-Rolled Products. The acquisition is also expected to increase Allegheny's financial flexibility and simplify its capital allocation and deployment.

Allegheny's Flat-Rolled Products segment produces, converts and distributes stainless steel, nickel-based alloys, titanium and titanium-based alloys, and specialty alloys in various product forms - plates, sheets, engineered strips and precision rolled strip products, as well as grain-oriented electrical steel sheets - to independent service centers and end-use customers. It serves chemical process, oil and gas, electrical energy, automotive, food equipment and appliances, machine and cutting tools, construction and mining, aerospace and defense, electronics, communication equipment and computer industries. In the segment, Allegheny owns a 60% interest in a Chinese joint venture company, Shanghai STAL Precision Stainless Steel Company Limited (STAL), which commenced commercial production in 2000. Baosteel Group owns the remaining 40%. Allegheny also owns a 50% interest in the industrial titanium joint venture known as Uniti LLC. Verkhnaya Salda Metallugical Production Association (VSMPO), the Russian producer of titanium, aluminum and specialty steel products owns the remaining 50% interest.

Allegheny's High Performance Metals segment produces, converts and distributes high performance alloys including nickel and cobalt-based alloys and super alloys titanium and titanium-based alloys exotic metals (such as zirconium, hafnium, niobium and nickel-titanium) and their related alloys and other specialty alloys primarily in long product forms, such as ingot, billet, bar, shapes and rectangles, rod, wire, seamless tube, and castings. It sells products directly to end-users in the aerospace and defense, chemical process industry, oil and gas, electrical energy and medical sectors. About 70% of the demand in the segment comes from the aerospace and defense market.

Allegheny recorded sales of roughly $5,032 million in 2012 with Flat-Rolled Products, High Performance Metals and Engineered Products segments accounting for 47%, 43% and 10%, respectively.


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