Delcam Customer TTL Wins Queen's Award for Enterprise

31 May 2002 -- Delcam is pleased to announce that Toolroom Technology Limited, based in Aylesbury, UK, has received the highest UK technology award, the Queen's Award for Enterprise, for its innovative 5-axis adaptive machining technology. This technology, which is based on Delcam software that has been extensively customised by TTL developers, has provided cost-effective solutions to a number of complex manufacturing problems, particularly the manufacture and repair of gas turbine components.

Gas turbine blades have complex shapes and must be manufactured to a high degree of accuracy from difficult-to-machine materials. Refurbishing them after wear can be even more challenging. It involves complex machining operations that had to be carried out by hand prior to TTL's introduction of adaptive machining. As well as being time consuming and requiring skilled workers, hand machining exposed operators to the danger of contracting vibration white finger and other health related problems.

TTL has replaced hand machining with an automated process that captures data from each component and generates 5-axis manufacturing data unique to that part automatically. The system takes account of the fact that no two turbine blades are an exact geometrical match and that the weld used for the repair is never applied in the same place or to the same thickness. The result is high-quality machined parts, lower repair times and more consistent output.

For each application, TTL developers produce a customised user interface for the particular operation on top of the Delcam software. These interfaces give a high degree of automation and so bring increased efficiency and faster turnaround times. They also mean that operators with little or no computer experience can use the systems after a minimal amount of training.

As part of its service, TTL also integrates its systems with the customer's chosen selection of machine tools. Interfaces have already been developed for equipment from leading manufacturers such as Makino, Bridgeport, Hermle, DMG, Haas, Matsuura, Mazak and Bostomatic.

Although its technology has been most widely used in the gas turbine industry, TTL has also produced systems for a variety of other complex manufacturing operations. Probably, the most unusual demonstration of the capabilities of the adaptive machining approach was seen on the company's stand at the 1998 Paris Air Show. There, the signatures of visitors were machined into the shells of a series of raw eggs, without ever breaking through the shell. Like turbine blades, eggs may appear to be identical but are never exactly the same.

www.delcam.com

 

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