Mega-part machining – new technologies and successful tactics

MAG responds to industry requirements for larger parts machined to higher accuracies and lower costs, providing an imX Learning Lab on mega-part machining technologies and tactics. As industries such as wind, oil, construction, aerospace and defense now require machines capable of cutting larger and more complex parts with higher accuracies, MAG has concentrated its product development on multitasking machines that meet the highest requirements for process efficiency and precision on mega-size parts. The company will also share its in-house machining expertise on large parts in a presentation that covers:

• Machine tool construction for supersize, heavy-duty cutting.
• Multi-functional and multi-sided part processing approaches and benefits.
• New cutting techniques, including cryogenics.
• Volumetric Error Compensation and accuracy components.
• Application examples discussed in the presentation as well as on the show floor.

The Lab will explore new technologies and tactics that allow complete machining of large parts in one setup on one machine, eliminating dangerous part transfers, time consuming setups and stack up of errors. Latest examples include new gear hobbing capability integrated on a large VTC 2500H, as well as the new U6 gantry mill with up to 7.5 m vertical travel (Z and W axes) and 9 m Y-axis, providing extra flexibility for five-sided and five-axis productivity on large parts. MAG will also explain the new procedure and technology for doing volumetric error compensation on large machine tools, an award-winning protocol it helped develop with a government/industry consortium that included the National Center for Manufacturing Science.