In response to a specific customer requirement, Diamond America engineers had to challenge convention and rethink the design of a monolith die.

Commonly used for extruding catalysts and some food products, a monolith die produces an outer profile that contains many channels, separated by thin walls. The final product is reminiscent of a honeycomb in the way that it has multiple, parallel holes when viewed from the end.

The customer currently produced a profile containing 25 holes in each one-inch solid block of product. A request had come in for them to form a product with only 20 holes.

Could they adjust the internal configuration of the honeycomb shape from 25 to 20 internal channels?
Or would the whole die set need to be re-made?

Quick Change

Our design engineers set to work and created an adjustable mandrel tray – see image. This new design meant that it was not necessary to order a completely new die to accommodate the reduced number of holes. Only the tray and the pins of the existing mandrel die set needed to change.

For Diamond America this new, modular invention made the monolith die much easier and quicker to manufacture. Traditional monolith die designs leave the mandrels as an integral part of the second die plate, whereas the new insertable mandrel tray incorporates only the exact number of pins required as an interchangeable part, allowing the mandrels to remain separate from the die plate and thus reducing its complexity.

For our customer, as well as avoiding the need to purchase a complete new die set, the process benefits were threefold:

  1. Dramatically reduced product manufacturing lead times
  2. Faster changeover between different product runs
  3. increased scheduling flexibility for different product configurations

They were able to deliver to their customer, exactly to required specification, faster and without significant additional investment in a completely new die set – now that’s service!


Call Diamond America now at 330-535-3330 for your partner in productivity improvement.


Diamond America’s modified Monolith Die for rapid changeovers

Image 1. Diamond America’s modified Monolith Die for rapid changeovers