Machine tool suppliers, builders, and distributors are adopting aggressive ways to support their customers’ efforts to improve productivity and profitability in especially trying economic times.
Advanced materials for automotive manufacturing are helping automakers build lighter, more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Composites engineers are expanding their craft to build more complex, durable parts at higher production volumes. One way they are achieving this objective is by using infusion-molding processes based on Resin Transfer Molding (RTM) and Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Molding (VARTM).
There will be more than one new machine introduced at IMTS 2006 that will be billed as a China beater, or as an India and rest-of-Asia beater, for that matter.
When a tool breaks during a machining operation, the part being processed is often destroyed, and sometimes the machine is damaged. Aerospace parts are often complex shapes, manufactured from exotic materials that require prolonged machining cycle times. Therefore, a scrapped part is a significant loss in raw materials and value-added machining.
Titanium, stainless steel, aluminum and other super-alloys and exotic materials are on the rise for use in component manufacturing in growth industries such as aerospace, medical, and automotive.
Whether your shop produces plastic injection molds, does tool and die work, or wire-cuts precision features on medical and aerospace components, you’ll want to check out the latest and greatest in EDM technology at IMTS 2018. More than two dozen exhibitors will be there, demonstrating larger, faster machine tools along with innovative ways to make them more productive.
Composite materials have clear benefits for manufactured parts in aerospace, medical, automotive applications and many other industries. Ensuring the highest part accuracy is critical. Force measurement and material testing are essential processes for product designers and manufacturers to gain insightful data to create high-quality composite components.
On May 9, I took a whirlwind tour of change in manufacturing by visiting several open house events. First up was BIG Kaiser Precision Tooling Inc. in Hoffman Estates, IL, where Matt Tegelman, applications manager and product manager Kaiser, talked about the Industrial Internet of Things.
Shrink-fit toolholding is a simple concept—an induction coil is adjusted and fits over the top of the toolholder. The induction coil heats the toolholder end of the shrinker, expanding the inside diameter, which opens the engagement bore (IDs of shrink-fit toolholders are smaller than the shank diameter of the cutting tool).
