Spearheading Machining Technology for Aerospace

Bert P. Erdel

doi:10.4271/972226

1997-06-03

Spearheading Machining Technology for Aerospace 972226

The aerospace industry is faced with ever more demands on quality, variety and complexity of their products.

The spectrum of part materials certainly encompasses a much wider range than any industrial manufacturing while the cost of parts and components by design, function and machining are highest, too.

Hence aerospace manufacturing's perpetual quest for new, advanced machining processes that:

yield predictable, consistent results.
lower the machining cost per part.
decrease main machining times.
increase flexibility and adaptability.
improve produced quality.
minimize operations.

The three advanced processes that can accommodate these demands best are one-pass finish-machining, (near) dry-machining and high-speed machining.

ONE-PASS FINISH-MACHINING - The key is to finish-machine given part castings with one operation at high precision, instead of step by step machining. The one-pass approach is to include even complicated part configurations and contours.

Foregoing premachining and post-machining processes, dramatically lowers manufacturing cost and markedly increases productivity.

HIGH-SPEED MACHINING - Geared toward shortening main machining times and minimizing non-cutting times, high-speed machining is very promising. However, it is not just a matter of revving up machine spindle speeds, but to design cutting tools and tooling interfaces that as a whole system secure productivity and precision machining.

(NEAR) DRY-MACHINING - A study by Daimler Benz revealed that up to 16% of overall production cost is related to the use of cutting fluids. Cost considerations and OSHA requirements spur efforts to implement (near) dry-machining processes. New technical developments are quite encouraging.

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Spearheading Machining Technology for Aerospace 972226

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