PROCESS AND MACHINE TOOL FOR MACHINING AND HARDENING METALLIC WORKPIECES

摘要

A method and a machine tool are disclosed for processing and hardening metallic workpieces. The workpieces are clamped in workpiece holders and are first processed with metal cutting by means of a processing device and are then hardened by means of a hardening device. For hardening, the processed workpiece is first heated by means of a heating unit and then quenched by means of a quenching unit. The quenching occurs by means of a cryogenic cooling medium, e.g., liquid or gaseous nitrogen. Because the processing and hardening of the workpiece occurs in a clamping device, and the fast quenching of the heated workpiece, a high processing quality and short processing and/or cycle times are achieved.