Steel Metal

For aerospace component makers, a 5-axis, long-bed, 90kW/20,000 rev/min machining centre offers high aluminium metal removal rates - reducing cycle times by up to 40%

Chiron has developed new high-power, long-bed, five-axis machining centre concepts that are specially tailored to customers in the aerospace sector. These include 5-axis Chiron Mill machining centres with a 90kW, 20,000 rev/min spindle that allow customers to explore new possibilities in highly productive aerospace machining.

The massively powerful spindle allows major savings in cycle times - with aluminium removal rates of around 2.1/2 lb/min.

As Chiron’s managing director Richard Blake explained, ‘One of the major issues within the aerospace industry is that maybe only 2% of the billet material ends up as product.

The rest has to be removed.

That’s why poundage is the key to being cost-effective.

Most machines currently in use in the aerospace sector only have 40kW spindles.
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A 5-axis vertical machining centre features a thermally stabilised head with motor spindle that swivels about the B-axis, while the fifth CNC axis is provided by a horizontal rotary table

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The latest Chiron machines with spindles in the 90 to 100kW range allow you to cut faster for the more cost-effective manufacture of components.

On wing components, for example, it would not be unreasonable to expect a 40% reduction in cycle times.’ He said that many of the high-volume machine tool makers aren’t interested in offering this kind of special capability, and that Chiron has set out to offer something over and above other suppliers.

This is also true of the long bed sizes available in Chiron’s Mill range.

A typical specification might include a 3m overall bed length with a twin rotary table configuration, where each table could take components up to 1.25m in the X axis.

This compares to a maximum of around 800mm on most mass-market machines - and many wing components will not fit on this size table.

The Mill series machines also offer 60m/min rapid travels in all axes, spindle speeds up to 20,000 rev/min, HSK63 taper spindle nose and 30 bar through spindle coolant.

With its long bed, the machine layout is designed for optimum spindle utilisation.

The moving column, with vertical fixed spindle or tilting fifth-axis head can, for example, serve two rotary tables on either side of a mechanically operated dividing door.

While the components on one table are being machined the other table is being loaded and unloaded, so maximum uptime is achieved.

To support this high level of utilisation the Mill machine is fitted with a background tooling magazine holding 92 tools that works in conjunction with a tool changer within the machining column to give chip-to-chip times of less than 2.9s irrespective of where on the bed the column is.

Rather than simply supplying a machining centre, Chiron UK and its parent company, The Engineering Technology Group, can deliver a turnkey package, with zero point hydraulic or vacuum fixturing supplied by its sister company Hyfore Engineering, complete with all programs written, parts proved out and with guaranteed cycle times.

‘We believe that this ability of Chiron and The Engineering Technology Group to offer a total package is a major benefit for our customers - a total philosophy that other companies can’t offer,’ said Blake.

‘To stave off overseas competition we need to be at the forefront of technology in the UK.

If we are not exploiting it to its optimum effect then we will lose out to Third World labour rates.’