Adaptive Control for Aerospace Machining

Transcription

1 Adaptive Control for Aerospace Machining Rob Caron, P.E. President of Caron Engineering, Inc.

2 CHALLENGES

3 COMPONENTS ARE DIFFICULT TO MACHINE Aerospace components, especially engine components, are made from materials that are very tough to machine, such as titanium, monel, hastelloy, Inconel, and composite materials. Many components are manufactured from solid blocks of material to maintain the integrity of the part. In these cases, the operator must program for the worst material condition. The hardness of the material can vary, even in the same part. In these cases, the part program must account for worst case.

4 ACCELERATED TOOL WEAR Tooling breaks down at a higher rate with these tougher materials. This makes it difficult to determine how fast the tool can be driven without causing damage to both the tool and material.

5 COSTLY SCRAP The cost of these parts is increasing, and scrapping parts due to tool breakage can be VERY COSTLY Parts can be in the tens of thousands and even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

6 WELDING BEAD Machining the welded area of aerospace components can be very tricky due to the inconsistency in material. Programmers must plan the feed rate for the worst material condition of the welded area.

7 Tool Monitoring Adaptive Control Measures tool wear in real-time Maximizes tool life by monitoring Monitors using Fixed Limits, Work Percentage, & Adaptive Control Tool Monitoring with Adaptive Control is especially critical for Immediate Machine Stop and Retract when a Tool Breaks Aerospace Machining Remote Notification of Machine Alarms Graphical Display of Cutting Data for Analysis

8 Tool Monitoring and Adaptive Control are essential to improving and understanding the machining process A good indicator of wear Prevents breakage Provides valuable information about the cutting process Optimizes cutting & reduces cycle time Reduces cost of consumable tooling by increasing tool life Reduces scrap rate Adapts to varying material conditions

9 POWER is the prevalent technology used for ADAPTIVE CONTOL Power Vibration Strain Coolant Pressure Coolant Flow Spindle Speed ALL of these sensors can be used by TMAC to react to anomalies in the normal machine operation by providing messages, alarms, etc. to the user. In addition, they provide advanced analysis of both machine cutting as well as machine mechanics.

10 ADAPTIVE CONTROL Optimizes cutting time under CHANGING cutting conditions. Without Adaptive A constant feed rate is set based on the safest or worst material condition With Adaptive TMAC learns the optimal power and automatically adjusts the feed rate based on the load. FEED RATE Actual Cut INCREASES feed rate with low power conditions. DECREASES feed rate with higher power cuts and as tools wear.

11 With traditional adaptive control, SLOW RPM cutters (under 1000 RPM) will create a spike with each tooth passing through the material. This shows a 5 flute end mill cutting at 300 RPM The feed rate is trying to adjust to each of those power surges The cutter is rotating so slow that the power of each tooth can be seen on the graph.

12 Our latest version of adaptive control is more robust for lower RPM cutting. With our Advanced Adaptive algorithm, TMAC learns the tooth pass frequency of each tool. Tooth Pass Frequency

13 Using the learned frequency TMAC can calculate the exact power oscillation of each tooth coming though the material. TMAC will use the average power of all flutes of a tool for adaptive control. This allows the adaptive control to respond to the entire tool s cutting, instead of each tooth.

14 We can collect a large amount of data

15 By utilizing Caron Engineering s we have helped many clients in the Aerospace Industry improve their machining process while saving time and money

16 Machine Tool: Liechti 5 Axis Mill Control: Siemens 840D Material: Titanium I ndust ry: Aerospace Machine Tool: Liecht i 5 Axis Mill Cont rol: Siemens 840D Customer is developing a new blisk milling process for milit ary airplane engines. The preliminary cycle t ime est imate for t his part is approximately 70 hours. A customer was developing The a new Solut milling ion process for an integrated blisk rotor with many welded pieces. The inconsistency in material thickness and Customer is implementing the newest version of TMAC MP hardness of the weld, combined whichwith offersthe advanced discrepancies adaptive control in part to optimize location cutting due to the welded areas were problematic. time underthe changing customer cutting was conditions. forced to program a very slow feed rate. The preliminary cycle time for this part was 70 hours. Using the adaptive algorithms, the cycle time is reduced by approximately 24 hours, which results in 34% cycle time savings. The customer implemented TMAC MP utilizing the advanced adaptive control option to optimize cutting time. Using the adaptive algorithms, the cycle time was reduced to 56 hours. Our cutting edge machine tool process technologies, coupled with premium machine tool solutions, and our combined support, training, and applications expertise have provided the metal cutting manufacturing industry with unparalleled productivity,reliability,and cost effectiveness. Caron Engineering, I nc Sanford Rd. P: F:

17 Machine Tool: OKK HMC Control: Fanuc 310is-A Material: 718 Inconel (cast) The customer was profiling and scalloping the flange on an engine case. Due to the varying cutting conditions, the feed rate had to be set to accommodate the worst material condition. The part cycle time was approximately 25 hours. With TMAC MP adaptive control automatically adjusting the feed rate to speed up through air cutting and lighter cuts, and slow down as the tool gets dull, the customer reduced the cycle time to 10 hours.

18 The Aerospace Industry is our #1 demand for Adaptive Control, consistently reducing cycle time and preventing material loss from tool breakage. It has a quick return on investment and can also provide extensive analysis of your cutting process. TMAC provides all the data necessary for INDUSTRY 4.0 Caron Engineering, Inc Sanford Rd. Wells, ME

19 Industry 4.0 Solutions Reduce cycle time and maximize tool life with Tool Monitoring Adaptive Control Eliminate operator data entry errors with automatic tool wear compensation software Automatically transfer tool presetter data from RFID tags in tool holders to the machine control Monitor any area of concern on your CNC machine tool or fixture Replace your existing status light available modes and programmable audible alarm In addition, we specialize in the integration of