Author: Contributing Editor Ilene Wolff
Date: 5/1/2013
Lasers get more powerful, accurate and affordable, improving productivity of laser marking and cutting
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Jim Lorincz
Date: 11/1/2012
Manufacturers today have a greater variety of highly specialized alternative technologies to choose from to maximize productivity, throughput, and profitability. Applications range from one off and short run manufacturing in job shops to mid-volume production for applications in virtually every industry. Innovative technologies include robotics with a human touch, waterjet cutting, and parallel kinematics machine (PKM) technology.
Full Article Author: Editor in Chief Sarah A. Webster
Date: 10/22/2012
GF AgieCharmilles, a leading provider of EDM systems, milling machines and laser texturing solutions, is now collaborating with the Virginia-based Commonwealth Center for Advanced anufacturing (CCAM) to help accelerate the transfer of research innovation from the laboratory to commercial use.
Full Article Author: John MacGregor, President, AA-EDM
Date: 9/1/2012
There are different forms of electric discharge machining (EDM), but all basically work in the same manner. EDM works by eroding material in the path of electrical discharges that form "a conduction channel" between an electrode tool and a workpiece.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Michael C. Anderson
Date: 8/1/2012
There’s a change in nomenclature at this year’s IMTS: Attendees looking for what was the Alternative Manufacturing Processes pavilion will be directed instead to Metal Forming & Fabricating/Laser. These processes include metal forming, fabrication, waterjet and laser-based machining, welding, metal treating and marking.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Jim Lorincz
Date: 8/1/2012
Technical advances continue to recommend EDM for applications where the closest tolerances and finest surface finishes are required.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor James D. Sawyer
Date: 7/1/2012
The Great Recession was not kind to manufacturing, but the industry has bounced back in fine fashion. It grew a phenomenal 91% from 2009 to 2010 and an impressive 66% from 2010 to 2011. Thus far this year manufacturing has grown 20%—beating forecasts.
Full Article Author: Doug Hixon, Robotic Laser Welding & Cutting Specialist, ABB Robotics
Date: 6/1/2012
The longer term challenges facing the automobile industry are as complex as they are interrelated: Design cars that people want. Increase customer satisfaction. Reduce capital costs. Improve passenger safety. Increase fuel efficiency. And, of course, do all of this while sustaining a business model with a reasonable profit margin.
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Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 5/1/2012
Lasers cut, weld and mark the metal alloys and polymers used to build the latest medical implant breakthroughs, surgical instruments, and other related medical products. Many key characteristics of today’s lasers make the devices ideal for use in medical applications such as cutting stents and endoscopes, pacemaker components and other medical components.
Full Article Author: Mohamed Hashish, Senior Vice President of Technology, Flow International
Date: 3/1/2012
A look at machining aircraft composite structures with abrasive waterjets.
Full Article Author: Jim Lorincz
Date: 11/1/2011
The advantages of abrasive waterjet machining are no longer a mystery to the everyday shop user, and haven’t been for some time. Steel, stainless, titaninum, composites, and high-temperature alloys and exotics including Inconel, Waspaloy, and Hastelloy, as well as a wide array of nonmetals, are being routinely cut. Materials, especially for sensitive applications, can be cut without heat-affected zones (HAZ) and heat deformation.
Full Article Author: Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 8/1/2011
Laser technologies for cutting and welding parts have been steadily refined since the laser was invented some 50 years ago. Today, laser technology is easily used to quickly cut 2-D or 3-D sheetmetal parts and to make high-quality welds.
Full Article Author: Editor Brian J. Hogan
Date: 5/1/2011
The success of the laser as a tool for manufacturing medical devices has occurred due to an alignment of its features to that of the industry. Those requirements for high quality, accuracy, miniaturization, and reliability match up well with the laser’s inherent fine resolution, high controllability, and stability.
Full Article Author: Stuart C. Salmon, PhD, FSME, President, Advanced Manufacturing Science and Technology
Date: 2/1/2010
This process can supplant conventional large-chip machining operations like milling, planing, broaching, and turning.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Jim Lorincz
Date: 12/1/2009
Manufacturers of microcomponents are riding a new wave of precision, because one man couldn't produce a number of smaller parts using conventional abrasive waterjet cutting. Walter Maurer, director of Micromachining AG (Aarwangen, Switzerland), co-developed the Womajet abrasive waterjet micromachining center in 2004 with the objective in mind of machining small micro-sized components.
Full Article Author: Stuart C. Salmon, President, Advanced Manufacturing Science and Technology
Date: 8/1/2009
A process employed by Neanderthals ages ago, grinding has stood the test of time, and is as important to our survival today as it was then. One might think that we would know all there is to know about grinding, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Grinding has branched into two well-defined areas; the first is abrasive machining, and the second is precision grinding.
Full Article Author: Patrick Baliva, OEM and MTG Manager, Saint-Gobain Abrasives
Date: 2/1/2009
We have all seen and experienced the recent trends. Spiraling costs, global competition, and the green movement are just a few of the many pressures manufacturers are now facing in North America. Lean manufacturing, six sigma, and an increased focus on cost reduction, safety, quality, and service have become required endeavors for any corporation looking to become more competitive.
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 8/1/2008
Speed and accuracy are primary
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 8/1/2008
New coatings open new markets
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 7/1/2008
Alternate CNC choices can offer manufacturers cost and productivity enhancements
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Michael Tolinski
Date: 6/1/2008
Honing could be considered an unfairly neglected material-removal technology, when you consider its importance in allowing millions of automobile engines to run cleanly, quietly, and efficiently. The widespread, practical use of internal combustion engines, both large and small, would essentially be impossible without carefully sized and surfaced cylinder bores and other components.
Full Article Author: Laird Perry and Eric Ostini
Date: 5/1/2008
Marriage of abrasive waterjet and wire EDM maximizes shop production
Full Article Author: Stuart C. Salmon, President, Advanced Manufacturing Science and Technology
Date: 2/1/2008
What sort of fluid should I be using? It's a question often asked by someone who expects a simple answer. Considering all of the technology that goes into designing and building a CNC grinding machine (the basic machine tool technology, however, having been around since the industrial revolution), and the complexity of the abrasive wheel specifications (also a rather mature science—Stone-Age man was making wheels and grinding), the hope is that the fluid science might be relatively simple. Oh no!
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 11/1/2007
More powerful, more accurate, more versatile
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Bruce Morey
Date: 11/1/2007
The flexibility of lasers becomes evident in a variety of sometimes surprising applications
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 10/1/2007
Alternative metalcutting technologies continue to improve
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Patrick Waurzyniak
Date: 8/1/2007
Advances in laser technology offer shops more powerful, cost-efficient ways to boost cutting efficiencies
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 8/1/2007
Expanding use of ever-harder materials has opened the door to wider use of grinding processes on materials such as titanium, ceramics, and superalloys. These are often materials with properties such as higher strength, wear resistance, and light weight, which are important to the electronics, aerospace, and medical industries. In some cases, high tool wear or time constraints make conventional milling, turning, and drilling economically impractical, so it's grinding to the rescue.
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Bruce Morey
Date: 5/1/2007
Lasers for industrial fabrication are getting more powerful, sharper focused, and easier to use
Full Article Author: Richard W. Bertsche, President, Bertsche Engineering Inc.
Date: 4/1/2007
High-pressure water can simultaneously clean and deburr a workpiece, and hybrid systems can include mechanical deburring in the process
Full Article Author: John H. Olsen and Carl C. Olsen, OMAX Corp.
Date: 3/1/2007
Proper selection and application of software to waterjet operations can enhance workpiece accuracy
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 2/1/2007
It may be a surprising statistic to know that coated abrasives make up more than 50% of all abrasive grinding applications. (The term coated abrasive refers to the method of manufacture, or placing an abrasive on a base material, not a coating on the abrasive.) Developments in abrasives and the machines that use them have made coated abrasives the rival of other grinding techniques as well as conventional machining.
Full Article Author: Contributing Editor Bruce Morey
Date: 2/1/2007
Accuracy and process flexibility drive innovations in today's abrasive machining equipment
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert B. Aronson
Date: 3/1/2006
Waterjets do the job for the aerospace industry
Full Article Author: Senior Editor Robert Aronson
Date: 2/1/2006
Why consider peel grinding? Among the reasons: high precision; ability to make complex, small features; works well on hard materials conventional machining can't handle; and the falling cost of CBN.
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