Composite materials consist of fibers—in the aerospace industry, they are typically glass, carbon or kevlar—suspended in a matrix of epoxy resin.
The concept of the digital twin in A&D was born in the 1970s, when NASA began employing full-scale virtual mock-ups of space capsules to forecast the performance of machines in outer space.
To a discrete manufacturer, process manufacturing is odd territory indeed. It’s a world in which textiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, plastics, and food and beverage are produced en masse.
If you ask any number of manufacturers exactly what they felt the first time they crashed a stationary machine tool or dropped portable measuring equipment, you’re bound to get a range of answers—though dread, terror and even nausea will almost certainly be on the list of responses.
With a single example, Ira Moskowitz makes the case for why the organization he leads may be critical for advancing manufacturing in the United States.
The impact of disruptive technology and the benefits of Industry 4.0 digitization of controls, machines and processes have been fully embraced by the metal removal segment of advanced manufacturing.
Listen to this Smart Manufacturing magazine article: Pandemic makes case for more automation, robotics. Outbreak poised to prompt changes in the way manufacturers use automation.
Driven spindles are the technical core of a machine tool, supplying the power to turn the cutting tools that shape our products and our world. Attaching one to a five-axis movement creates an advanced CNC machine.
The three-axis vertical machining center (VMC) has long been the go-to machine tool for many small to medium-sized shops. Their use is well-understood. Compared to more complex machinery, it’s easier to find operators for three-axis machines.
Horizontal machine tools (HMCs) have typically been used for longer run production jobs. But as lot sizes decrease, machine builders and their partners have introduced new technologies that speed setups and generally make HMCs nimbler. So much so that one should probably rethink the role HMCs serve.
