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Tag Archives: CNC machining

Dual P5 Mill from Bertsche

The Customer’s Challenge:

Significant new business, order intake
New customers
Steeply rising monthly production rates
Building/Facility space constraints

Solution: The Bertsche Two-in-One P5 Mill

P5 Dual Mill | Bertsche

Bertsche’s Dual P5 Mill allows dual work chamber manufacturing, independent or simultaneous, thereby saving considerable factory floor space for their aerospace customer.

 

Our aerospace customer was faced with the choice of either building a new facility to house two new milling machines or splitting their production between two manufacturing sites. Bertsche developed a new machine concept that offered the customer the productivity (throughput)  of two machines and the floor space footprint requirements of one machine, thereby saving the customer the cost of  building a 2nd facility and moving all production to a larger facility.   The Bertsche Dual P5 Mill has all the benefits associated with having two machines, namely independent but linked CNC’s,  two 5-axis machining modules ( A-side, B-side) each with separate machining chambers, the ability to machine two different parts at the same time and yet the overall machine is nearly the same size as a previously supplied single 5-axis P5 Mill.   Based on the daily production requirements, the machine is operated A-side only, B-side only or A and B side together.  Twin integral vacuum fixture tables are designed to accept a variety of different vacuum workholding fixtures that can be quickly changed at a moment’s notice, with a high degree of repeatability.  To assist the operator loading parts, each table has retractable datum surfaces that swing into place to edge locate parts and then swing back down, when machining.  Thick-walled composite structures (up to 0.625”) are milled, scalloped, edge trimmed and drilled on all sides.  High accuracy hole patterns and datum holes are drilled for determinate assembly and then probed for accuracy.  Parts are machined complete in a single setup and manufactured one-off to meet user ship-set kitting requirements.

With the growing trend towards cutting composites wet, flood coolant cutting was added and composite debris is flushed into a full bed length flume system.  Flood coolant is constantly circulated throughout the machine for greater machine thermal stability. High volume mist collection hoods, integral to the machining compartment, collect and vent mist.  A special sealing system is employed on linear ways to protect precision surfaces from very aggressive (detergent type) coolant fluids that must be used with composite materials. Multiple temperature sensors on the bed and X-axis slide accurately capture data for dynamic thermal compensation.  To reduce the amount of filtration media, coolant is continuously filtered using a cyclonic filtration system.

P5 Dual Mill | Bertsche

Bertsche’s Dual P5 Mill allows dual work chamber manufacturing, independent or simultaneous, thereby saving considerable factory floor space for their aerospace customer.

 

Benefits:

  • Very efficient use of available floor space with 2x the productivity compared to a previously installed machine
  • Lower operating costs due to greater efficiencies
  • Flexibility to better match daily production demands to available machine capacity
  • Operate as single or twin machine
  • Easier to manage work area
  • Labor cost savings
  • Longer tool life due to wet cutting composites
  • Better air quality due to wet cutting (dust management)
  • High response 2-axis head and spindle
  • Thermal growth control
  • Thermal growth compensation
  • In machine probing, calibration and position verification (bore ring, sphere)
  • Part drying provided as part of post machining operations

For more information on this story, please contact:

BERTSCHE ENGINEERING CORPORATION
711 Dartmouth Lane
Buffalo Grove, IL 60089
Phone:  847-537-8757
Fax:  847-537-1113
Web:  www.bertsche.com
Email:  info@bertsche.com
Attention:  Rich Bertsche or Erich Bertsche

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Siemens and KUKA Announce Cooperation

Kuka Siemens

Dr. Robert Neuhauser (left) and Manfred Gundel (right) announce Siemens/KUKA cooperation

Siemens and KUKA held a press conference at the EMO Hannover 2013. Manfred Gundel, CEO of the KUKA Roboter GmbH, and Dr. Robert Neuhauser, CEO of the Motion Control Systems (MC) Business Unit of the Siemens Drive Technologies Division, has informed about an enhanced cooperation.

· Joint solutions offered: integrated, operator-friendly loading of machine tools using robots
· Integration of robotics and CNC solutions for machining workpieces with robots
· Strengthening the fundamental idea of integrated production processes
· Development of new applications in lightweight construction

Siemens Drive Technologies Division and KUKA Roboter GmbH have announced comprehensive cooperation at EMO in Hanover. The central pillar of the cooperation is integration of KUKA robots and Siemens CNC solutions for loading machine tools. “With this joint approach, the two companies are strengthening the fundamental idea of integrated production and can, for example, develop new markets by close intermeshing of machine tool tasks and loading tasks,” says Manfred Gundel, CEO of KUKA Roboter GmbH. “The CNC control from Siemens and the robot controls from KUKA are ideal for integrating robot and CNC technology. With this cooperation, we are deepening our many years of cooperation and together advancing intelligent automation solutions as outlined by the Industrie 4.0 project for the benefit of both partners and to expand business,” says Dr. Robert Neuhauser, CEO of Business Unit Motion Control Systems at Siemens.

Highly flexible and fully automated production today demands complete integration of robots into the production flow and into the automation environment. In this area, in particular, applications for robots and machine tools are growing together steadily as a result of new requirements and technological progress. Given these developments, Siemens and KUKA are strengthening their cooperation in automation and industrial robots. The aim is to be better able to serve industries with high automation requirements in loading and machining. With the shared development, customers will have access to new products and solutions that are coordinated optimally over their entire life cycle, from design, to production simulation, to engineering and the production shop level. Moreover, in the long term, the two companies will be including aspects of robot automation in their activities as outlined in the Industrie 4.0 project.

With this close partnership, Siemens and KUKA can offer end customers integrated solutions with a high technological demand and level of maturity and position themselves still better on global markets. At the center of the joint development and the closely meshed marketing activities is seamless, operator-friendly integration of the robot for loading the machine tool. The companies will also develop scalable, integrated solutions for machining workpieces with robots, especially for lightweight construction. In this field, in particular, new materials such as composites require innovative machining concepts that the two companies will be intensively advancing as part of the cooperation.

KUKA will provide robot systems that make use of proven solutions in the field of CNC with Sinumerik from Siemens for integration with machine tools. The standard implementation of the concept includes loading by a KUKA robot, which is integrated in Sinumerik. A scaled offer is also planned ranging from a robot with additional CNC machining functionality to a robot as a pure CNC machining unit. Here, too, the aim is complete integration of the robot into the PLM processes.

At EMO 2011, both partners have already presented the integration of the robot into the Sinumerik user interface as an application, for programming, teach-in, and diagnostics. The next step will now be the connection to CNC tasks.

Click here to view the slide presentation from the press conference.

For more information on the story above, contact:

Siemens AG, Media Relations
Franz-Ferdinand Friese, phone: +49 911 895 7946
E-mail: franz.friese@siemens.com

KUKA Roboter GmbH, Corporate Communications
Wolfgang Meisen, phone.: +49 821 4533 1981
E-Mail: WolfgangMeisen@kuka-roboter.de

The Siemens Drive Technologies Division (Nuremberg, Germany) is the world’s leading supplier of products, systems, applications, solutions and services for the entire drive train, with electrical and mechanical components (Integrated Drive Systems). Drive Technologies serves all vertical markets in the production and process industries as well as the infrastructure/energy segment. With its products and solutions, the Division fulfills the key requirements of its customers for productivity, energy efficiency, and reliability. For more information, visit http://www.siemens.com/drivetechnologies

The KUKA Roboter GmbH, with its headquarters in Augsburg, is a member of the KUKA Aktiengesellschaft and ranks among the world’s leading suppliers of industrial robots. Core competencies are development, production and sale of industrial robots, controllers and software. The company is the market leader in Germany and Europe and the number three in the world. KUKA Roboter GmbH employs about 3180 people worldwide. In 2012, sales totaled 742,6 million Euro. 25 subsidiaries provide a presence in the major markets of Europe, America and Asia.

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