CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
March 2005
Product News
Delcam To Show Five-Axis And Adaptive Machining Options At CIMT
Delcam will demonstrate its latest developments in five-axis machining and adaptive machining on stand 305 in Hall 6 of the CIMT exhibition to be held in Beijing from 11th to 17th May. Both these technologies are being used increasingly by small and large companies seeking to increase manufacturing productivity, reduce delivery times and improve quality in a wide range of applications.
The range of positional and continuous five-axis options within Delcam's PowerMILL software is being continually expanded. It now includes machining through a point or to a point, or to or from a line; programming using a reference surface; swarf machining; and five-axis trimming, pocketing and drilling. For all the options, PowerMILL makes five-axis programming much easier than is possible with the more complicated software traditionally used by the large corporations in the aerospace and automotive industries.
This combination of flexibility and ease of use has enabled PowerMILL to be used successfully in a wide variety of applications, including the manufacture of complex blades, blisks and structures by smaller aerospace sub-contractors, port machining and composite trimming by autosport companies, and the engraving of bottle moulds in the packaging industry.
Five-axis drilling in particular is very much simpler. PowerMILL includes more comprehensive hole recognition from a wider range of CAD systems than other CAM systems, as well as automatic capping of holes to prevent any milling cutter entering them.
PowerMILL also includes many safety features to ensure that five-axis machining can be programmed easily and efficiently, without any risk of gouging either during cutting moves or during the leads and links. For example, five-axis collision checking is automatically undertaken for the tool holder as well as for the cutter, while contact point analysis allows the user to ensure that only the cutting surface touches the component and that rubbing with the shank is avoided. Furthermore, the machine simulation option for PowerMILL includes collision checking between the various parts of the machine tool and the model, and also ensures that the machine does not attempt to move outside its operating limits.
Adaptive machining is mainly used to manufacture larger components, such as aerospace structures, moulds for bigger parts like automotive dashboards, or press tools for car body panels. In these cases, achieving the correct position and orientation of the stock on the machine is a major challenge, taking many hours of checking and adjustment. It is often easier to adjust the datum for the toolpaths to match the position of the workpiece, than it is to align the stock in exactly the desired position.
This approach has been used in the machining of geometric features for some time so many machine tools are already fitted with the probing system required. Delcam now offers an equivalent solution for the manufacture of complex shapes and surfaces that gives the same benefits of shorter set-up times and improved accuracy.
The process uses Delcam's inspection software, PowerINSPECT, together with a new program, PS-Fixture. First, a probing sequence is created for PowerINSPECT using the software's off-line programming capabilities. This sequence is used to collect a series of points from the workpiece, which can be used by a range of best-fit routines to determine its exact position. Any mis-match between the nominal position used in PowerMILL to generate the toolpaths and the actual position of the workpiece can be calculated in PS-Fixture. The software can then feed the results to the machine tool control as a datum shift or rotation to compensate for the alignment differences.
Once the machining sequence has been completed, on-machine verification with PowerINSPECT can check that the correct shape has been produced. Any errors that are found can be corrected immediately with an additional machining operation.
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