Since January 2020, we have seen the spread of the novel pneumonia caused by the novel coronavirus. Comparisons of the disease with the Spanish flu epidemic, which took place a century ago, has been on everybody’s lips. The 1918 influenza pandemic is said to have led to more than 40 million deaths, accounting for 2% of the then world population of two billion. Although it is known as the Spanish flu, it is said that the source of infection was U.S. soldiers entering World War I bringing the disease from the United States to Europe. In the first-ever world war, many people, including soldiers, moved and came into contact with other people on a global scale. Probably due to this, infectious diseases could spread very quickly. It is said that the death toll of World War I was 15 million in total, including both military personnel and civilians. Consequently, the number of victims of the Spanish flu was far greater than those of World War I. The world then faced truly difficult times.

In recent years, increased demand in the aircraft market has led to the need for higher production efficiency of aircraft parts. Heatresistant alloys and titanium alloys, widely employed for aircraft engines and structural members, are classified as difficult-tomachine materials and require cutting tools with high efficiency and long service life. In order to meet these user needs, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has developed next-generation cemented carbide tools specialized in machining heat-resistant alloys and titanium alloys. For heat-resistant alloys, a new cemented carbide material with excellent high-temperature properties suppresses plastic deformation and wear even in high-speed, high-feed machining, enabling highly efficient machining. For titanium alloys, a newly developed film coating significantly reduces the reaction with titanium alloys, suppressing adhesion to the tool and extending the service life.

The cubic boron nitride (cBN) cutting tool “SUMIBORON” is mainly composed of cBN particles that have low activity with iron, and has high hardness and high thermal conductivity next to diamond, contributing to productivity improvement and cost reduction in the finishing of difficult-to-cut ferrous materials. In the past decade, the automotive industry has strongly driven the shift to hybrid electric vehicles and electric vehicles, which requires higher precision and higher efficiency in machining of sintered ferrous alloys and cutting tools with stable performance and longer tool life for cast iron. The authors have successfully developed a new grade “SUMIBORON BN7115” for finishing these materials. BN7115 employs a high-purity cBN particles and new binder consisting of Co-Al-Cr-WC to improve the bonding strength between cBN particles, thereby achieving good resistance to wear and breakage. BN7115 is expected to solve problems such as a degradation of the cuting surface of sintered ferrous alloys caused by the dropout of cBN particles and chipping of edges caused by thermal shock during cutting cast iron.

SUMIBORON BINDERLESS is a polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (CBN) that directly binds nanometer- or sub-micron-level cBN particles without binder materials (Binderless CBN: BL-CBN). BL-CBN is harder or has better thermal conductivity than conventional CBN. Therefore, it offers higher efficiency and longer tool life in the machining of difficult-to-cut materials, such as cobalt-chromium alloys, titanium alloys, nickel-based heat-resistant alloys, and hardened steel for use in the aircraft, mold, and medical industries.

The progress of digitalization increases the need for automated and unmanned cutting process. Sensor-equipped cutting tools are expected to be one of the measuring instruments that help visualize and monitor cutting operations because they are positioned closer to the cutting point than conventional measuring instruments, enabling more precise measurement. Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has promoted research and development on turning tools and milling tools that are equipped with sensors, wireless communication devices, and electric power sources. This paper presents feasibility studies on the monitoring of cutting operations with our sensor-equipped turning tool and milling tool.

Ceramic coatings adopted to cutting tools include chemical vapor deposition (CVD) coating and physical vapor deposition (PVD) coating. The CVD coating has excellent wear resistance and heat resistance, but is inferior in toughness to the PVD coating. By controlling the coating structure on the nanometer order using the CVD method, we have established a new CVD coating technology that ensures the toughness of PVD coatings while maintaining the wear resistance and heat resistance of conventional CVD coatings, and enabled its mass production. This paper reports on its unique structure, excellent physical properties, and outstanding cutting performance when applied to cutting tools.

In automobile-related industries, the use of aluminum alloy and other nonferrous metal parts has been increasing to reduce the weight of vehicles for improved fuel efficiency and to respond to the increasing production of hybrid vehicles, electric vehicles, and fuel cell vehicles. To increase the productivity in machining of these parts, cutting tools are required to be easy to handle and highly effective in chip control, for reducing machining time and no-machining time. Furthermore, there is also a growing demand for lighter cutting tools suitable for compact machining equipment to improve the productivity per unit area of machining equipment. To meet these demands, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has developed a polycrystalline sintered diamond (PCD) cutter, ALNEX (ANX Series), for high-efficiency machining of aluminum alloys. This paper describes the features of the new cutter.

Nickel-based heat-resistant alloys, widely used for aircraft jet engines and power plant gas turbines, are difficult-to-cut materials causing short tool life in the grinding process. To meet the market needs for extended tool life and increased machining efficiency, we have developed an innovative electroplated cubic boron nitride (CBN) grinding wheel, CB Master. CB Master demonstrated 5 times longer tool life in grinding jet engine parts, and 1.5 times higher efficiency in processing gas turbine parts than conventional wheels.

The advancement of electric mobility as well as improvement in the efficiency of home appliance and industrial equipment have led to a need for higher performance motors. Axial gap motors (AGMs) are attracting attention as a motor that meets the need because of their low profile and high torque compared to radial gap motors. We have demonstrated the high torque and high efficiency of AGMs with soft magnetic powder composites (SMPCs) and started mass production of SMPCs for AGMs. In order to contribute to the further adoption of AGMs, we have developed a low-loss SMPC, pole-shoe teeth core, and thin-insulation-coated SMPC.

With the increasing performance of variable valve timing (VVT) systems, there is a growing demand for powder metallurgical parts with more complicated geometries. On the other hand, high productivity is also required in the manufacturing process to respond to the increasing demand for VVT parts. Accordingly, we have applied green machining, which achieves both high formability and productivity. This technology allows green compacts to be machined “before sintering,” which makes it possible to process parts about nine times faster than conventional post-sintering machining and thus enables volume production.

In an advanced information society where IoT and drones will widespread and in the near future where multitasking robots will be active due to the declining birthrate and aging population, there will be a greater need for stronger and lighter communication wires more than ever. The Special Steel Wire Division has developed thick copper covered (TCC) wire, which is a conductor composite material in which a high-strength steel wire is coated with a thick copper layer. TCC wire has higher strength than other copper alloy and composite material wires, and is particularly superior in flexibility. This paper reports on the characteristics of TCC wire.

SmART Strand is a prestressing steel strand equipped with an optical fiber to accurately measure the tension along the entire length of the prestressing steel cable. For prestressed concrete structures and ground anchors, it is important to ensure that the required tension of prestressing steel cable is provided and maintained. In order to directly evaluate the tension of prestressing cable during the installation and use, a new measuring method using SmART Strand has been developed. SmART Strand can be used for the maintenance of prestressed concrete structures and ground anchors, as well as their prestressing management.

We have developed a new aluminum material that has electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity close to those of pure aluminum, while maintaining strength even at high temperatures. As international regulations on carbon neutrality and CO2 emissions are being tightened at an accelerating pace, and emphasis is being placed on thermal management of electric devices and communication devices that contain high power semiconductors, aluminum materials are expected to be an alternative solution to copper-based materials for their light weight, high electrical conductivity, and high thermal conductivity. However, their application range is limited due to the decrease in strength at high temperatures above 150°C. Using powdered aluminum obtained by a quenching solidification method as a raw material, we have succeeded in developing a new aluminum material that maintains strength up to a high temperature of around 250°C, while also maintaining electrical conductivity and thermal conductivity close to those of pure aluminum. We are confident that this new material can meet the needs for lightweight conductive parts and heat dissipation products.

Synthetic diamonds have been widely used in industrial applications due to their high purity and low crystal defects compared to natural diamonds. It is also possible to endow specific electrical and magnetic properties by doping with different types of elements, and is expected to be applied in various fields such as sensing and measurement. We have succeeded in producing a diamond with the world's highest level of purity and lowest level of defects by using our unique high-pressure and hightemperature method. Furthermore, we have created a highly sensitive sensor with the nitrogen vacancy (NV-) center by electron beam processing and ion implantation in cooperation with Nissin Electric Co., Ltd. This paper introduces the high quality diamond synthesized for the NV sensor and its applicability.

Transportation management systems are one of the business support tools for logistics companies. Conventional systems require manual operation to change the route plan after the vehicle is dispatched, considering its current position and the time of visit to the customer. Therefore, we have developed a vehicle route planning engine and application programming interface (API) that enable real-time modification of the route plan, such as adding new tasks, even after the vehicle is dispatched. In addition, we have developed an automatic vehicle management system that enables users to check the past dispatch results and current task progress. This paper introduces the functions and performance of these systems.

For reducing traffic accidents and congestion, the need for infrastructure sensors is increasing worldwide. In order to cover a large area, multiple infrared sensors are deployed and work together to detect and track vehicles. We have developed a system and detection algorithm to integrate multiple infrared millimeter-wave radars. In this paper, we present the features of the system and the results of field tests.

A thermopile, which is a type of cooling-free infrared sensor composed of thermoelectric materials, and detects infrared rays without using electric power. For making a high-performance sensor, we developed a germanium-silicon (Si-Ge)-based thin-film thermoelectric material. The thermal conductivity of the Si-Ge thermoelectric material was reduced to 1 Wm-1K-1 due to the artificial nano-structure in the materials. In addition, its Seebeck coefficient was effectively increased by co-doping. This paper demonstrates that the thermopile constructed using the developed nanostructured Si-Ge material successfully detects infrared rays, and a gases detection system using the thermopile detects methane in the ambient air.

A large number of high-pressure fluid-filled (HPFF) and high-pressure gas-filled (HPGF) pipe-type cables had formerly been installed in U.S. power transmission lines since 1930s. As the pipe-type cables age, corrosion of the steel pipes and leakage of the dielectric fluid have become a problem. Using technology patented in the U.S. and Japan, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. designed, delivered, and installed its new high-voltage cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) triplex cable and its accessories for the existing transmission lines.

We supply heaters for heating semiconductor wafers in the single-wafer film deposition processes. Semiconductor wafers are indispensable for 5th generation communications, artificial intelligence, automatic driving, and large-capacity data storage in data centers. The refinement of semiconductor circuits requires the formation of uniform films on wafers, and this demands uniform temperature distribution in the wafers. Conventionally, heaters have been divided and arranged in concentric zones, but this does not cover the subtle unevenness of circumferential temperature distribution caused by various factors in the device environment. To overcome this challenge, we have developed a multi-zone heater and a controller capable of high-accuracy control.

Recently, Communication traffic has been increasing rapidly with the development of cloud computing, video distribution, 5G support, and other IT services. In association with this, there has been an increase in demand for smalldiameter, high-fiber-density optical cables in order to overcome physical restrictions of space in ducts. In Europe, North America, and other regions, air-blown optical cables are widely used for FTTH since they make it possible to extend existing conduits (microducts) without additional roadwork, thereby enabling economical network construction. A small-diameter duct used for installing optical cables by blowing compressed air is called a microduct. With the recent increase in transmission capacity and the popularization of FTTH, the need is growing for densely installing a large number of optical fibers into microducts. Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has developed and launched a 432 or fewer count optical fiber cable suitable for air-blowing installation. The new optical fiber cable comprises an intermittent 12-fiber ribbon core made up of 200 μm optical fibers (“200 μm 12-fiber Freeform Ribbon”) that are thinner than conventional optical fibers with an outer diameter of 250 μm.

With the recent popularity of telework, as well as the development of remote medical care and cloud services, data communication volume is increasing rapidly. To cope with this situation, there is a need for the construction of high-speed, large-capacity, low-latency communication networks using optical fibers. At the same time, the companies responsible for network construction have high expectations for a drastic improvement in work efficiency to efficiently manage the increased construction work. In order to meet these expectations, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. thoroughly pursued the ultimate in workability for the previous fusion splicer, TYPE-201e, without changing its features: compactness and lightweight. As a result, the company has developed a new ultracompact optical fiber fusion splicer, TYPE-201+ .