How to Cut Concrete
July 30th, 2011
Concrete is usually cut with diamond blades. There are different solutions to perform concrete cutting under different circumstances.
Concrete is usually cut with diamond blades. There are different solutions to perform concrete cutting under different circumstances.
Do you know high quality diamond blades may not work well for your job? This is true. Your diamond blades should fit your application. Here we give 8 easy tips you can use when you are buying diamond saw blades.
A common problem diamond blade users may encounter is that one (or more) segment break off the diamond blade. This problem is often known as segment loss, which not only means the damage of the diamond blade, but may cause serious security issues because of the segment flying out.
Normally, using diamond saw blades with adequate water (wet cutting) can extend the blades’ life and control dust. However, in some situations, dry cutting should or has to be performed. These situations include:
There are 3 main criteria when evaluating the performance of a diamond saw blade: cutting efficiency, service life and processing quality.
Diamond grit indicates the size of the diamond. The diamond’s protrusion height on the cutting surface of the diamond saw blade influences how deep the diamond can cut, while deeper cutting means higher cutting efficiency. If the diamond is big, its exposed portion can be higher, so its cutting efficiency can also be higher. Therefore coarser diamond grit leads to higher cutting efficiency of the diamond saw blade.
The meaning of a diamond tool’s diamond concentration is the weight of the diamonds in a unit volume of the diamond tool’s working layer, and it is defined that when each cubic centimeter contains 0.88g diamonds, the concentration is 100%. This definition also applies to CBN abrasives.
Perhaps the most commonly sighted diamond circular saw blades are the sintered metal-bonded ones, on which diamonds are mixed and sintered with metal bond materials to form the blades’ cutting edges — diamond segments. Normally, these blades are made via 3 methods: wholly sintering, silver brazing and laser welding. The diamond blades made via these 3 methods are different and have their respective features and applications.
Earlier diamond segments of diamond circular blades were all designed to be even cuboids. Later, people found that, after a period of sawing, the two sides of the segments are easier to be worn than the middle, and the segments become a convex shape. The convex-shape diamond segments have a larger contact area with the material being cut, therefore the diamonds on them are easier to be ground blunt and then need dressing. In addition, as the sawing force will also increase, the core of the diamond blade tends to be distorted and be deformed for vibrations. This can influence the cutting precision, and reduce the blade core’s service life. Sandwich diamond segments, which have higher side layers and lower middle layers, however, can solve this problem to a great extent.
The shape of diamond segments is an important factor influencing the performance of diamond saw blades. The different shapes are directly related to cutting efficiency and the ratio of the diamonds’ non-normal failure.