by Marina KHALIZEVA, journalist

In April 2010, the New Instrumental Solutions plant, the first production enterprise of nanoindustry was put into operation with the participation of the Russian State Corporation of Nanotechnologies (Rosnano), in the city of Rybinsk, Yaroslavl Region. The plant will produce monolithic carbide tools with multilayer nanostructured coating.

The enterprise occupies an area of 6,000 m² on the site of the Saturn Scientific and Production Amalgamation, which is specializing in the development, manufacture and maintenance of gas-turbine engines for military and civil aviation, ships of the Navy, power-generating and gas-pumping plants. It became an initiator of a project implemented in the shortest time for such object, just in 2 years. The total volume of investments to the project made about 1 bln rubles, including 499.8 mln rubles invested by Rosnano. Gazprombank was a financial investor of the project.

It is no mere chance that Rybinsk became a pioneer in the sphere of introduction of nanotechnologies into the production sector: one of the most respectable bases of machine-building of the country is located there.

Besides, the choice of this region was determined by its innovational commitment and mastering of the control technology by regional officials for major industrial projects.

"The holy of holies" of the enterprise is a nanocoating section, where some 20 machine-tools operate from leading West-European companies, such as Walter, Janker, Zoller and Eiffel Group. Some of them cut to pieces monolithic cylindrical blanks of carbide, tungsten and cobalt, while others cut out of them and grind drills, mills and recesses. Still others apply a special coating 2-3 micron thick on a working surface. Here is also Kremen-1, a unique national innovational plant for creation of reinforcing layers. It is developed by the Russian Scientific Center "Kurchatov Institute" (Moscow) in

cooperation with Saturn and Rybinsk State Aviation Technological Academy named after P. Solovyov within the federal target program "Research and studies of priority directions in the development of the science and technology complex of Russia in 2007-2012". Specialists from the Kurchatov Institute realized in this program a technology combining plasma coating with irradiation (assistance) by a high-energy ion beam, which allows uniform distribution of components on the surface and at depth, thus providing multiple improvement of operational characteristics and increase of reliability of tools. "The brain center" of the plant is a pulsed arc implantor consisting of ~50 kg module mounted on a working chamber flange and a 400 kg electric supply and control console. It is equipped with a mechanism of conjugation with a plasma coating process, which allows a stable operation in the conditions of low vacuum and high density of charged particles in the plasma of an arc evaporator or a magnetron atomizer. The Kremen-1 plant (the enterprise will receive a total of 4 such plants) can apply composite coatings of a complex mixture, which contain superhard compounds of metals, including multilayer ones (each of them of hundreds of nanometers thick). Plasma processing will be used for high-technology tools, which are in a special demand in strategic industries, such as aircraft engineering, rocket production, shipbuilding, instrument making, oil and gas industry.

Nanostructured coatings increase wear resistance of cutting surfaces, and thus increase the life cycle of drills, mills, reamers and core drills 2.5 times and improve their technical characteristics. The use of such hardalloy monolithic tools will essentially affect labor productivity, as with an abrupt rise in cutting speed such tools can remove 2-2.5 times more metal in comparison with conventional tools. Besides, a multiple use (up to 12 times) results ultimately in considerable decrease of expenses of metalworking companies. According to specialists of the European Union, 1 Euro spent on strengthening coating of the cutting tool saves operating costs making up 5 Euros.

In 2010, the Rybinsk plant intends to produce 62,000 new drills and mills and regrind over 150,000 used ones to the total amount of 400 mln rubles. The Amalgamation's budget of this year envisages to spend about 150 mln rubles for purchase of additional equipment. From January 1, 2011, the management plans to expand the product line, including at the expense of hard-alloy small-sized products. When the plant starts to operate at the designed capacity in 2014, it will produce more than 120,000 items of metal tools with nanocoating annually and also provide over 720,000 pieces of regrinding. According to Anatoly Chubais, head of Rosnano State Corporation, the enterprise will employ about 250 workers and increase the sales volume up to 2.5 bln rubles in the next four years.

Saturn Amalgamation, capable to secure guaranteed demand for almost 30 percent of this plant's annual output, will be the main customer of its products (at least, at first). However, other Russian machine-building enterprises are also waiting for a solid metal-cutting instrument. Within the framework of the signed agreements, the plant received a technical assignment for

manufacture of trial consignments with further introduction into national industrial giants of Rybinsk, Yaroslavl, Ufa, Moscow and the Byelorussian VIZAS plant (Vitebsk).

"This is the first joint project of Rosnano State Corporation at the stage of direct output of products," said Sergei Ivanov, Deputy Prime Minister of the RF Government in his speech at the plant's opening ceremony. "It solves the problem of import substitution in the machine-building industry, on the one hand, and demonstrates practical importance of high-tech introduction into production, on the other hand." Indeed, in our country the market of metal-cutting instruments is estimated today at approximately US$ 500 mln. However, almost 85 percent of this amount falls on import. The objective of the new plant is to change the situation in favor of national suppliers (it is not accidental that it is planned to open service centers in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don, Volgograd, Samara, Irkutsk, Omsk, Kazan, Perm, Khabarovsk and Vladi-

vostok). But in a technical sense, this project corresponds to the world level, therefore more challenging tasks are set in Rybinsk, i.e. to create a brand of an appropriate class in tool-making and gradually conquer markets of other countries.

In order to train skilled engineering staff (this is perhaps the main problem of the plant today), the Rybinsk State Aviation Technological Academy named after P. Solovyov, to order and under support of Rosnano, worked out a special program oriented to investment projects in the field of nanostructured coatings and technological fitting out for gas turbine machinery. The program is based on the modular concept, which provides enhanced training of relevant specialists for separate blocks. In addition to leading scientists of the academy, creative contribution to the program was made by employers, customer representatives and also specialists of the Russian Scientific Center "Kurchatov Institute" and the Center of Collective Use of Equipment "Diagnostics of Micro- and Nanostructures" (Yaroslavl). They will deliver lectures to students. The first 25 students, selected on a competitive basis from the engineering personnel of the plant and graduates of the aforesaid academy, are already training on the base of the department of Material Cutting, Machine Tools and Instruments. The short-range plans include practical training on the latest equipment models of the worldwide tool-making leaders, namely, Walter (Germany) and Galika (Switzerland-Germany).