Amari Aerospace has recently made a significant investment in an additional new Mayer aluminium plate saw supplied by exclusive UK agent, K:Tek Solutions. The total investment for the saw and ancillaries is in excess of €200,000 and is due to be installed at the company’s Southampton facilities during first quarter 2012.

A project team from Amari Aerospace conducted a thorough investigation of the various sawing systems available, to evaluate the strengths of each. Following this, the company decided the heavy-duty AL160 precision beam saw from Mayer was the most suitable to meet the needs of the business.

The first of these reasons was to provide additional cutting capacity to match the company’s growth in supplying precision cut aluminium plate to various market sectors. General manager Dave Enright, says: “Amari's on-time delivery performance has been an instrumental part of our success in the aluminium plate market, as has maintaining control of the short cutting leadtimes we offer. In today’s business climate, leadtimes are a key element of remaining competitive and are considered equally as important as initial material costs.”

Equipped with a 35 kW motor offering cutting speeds from 1,000rpm up to 4,000rpm the AL160 machine can cut aluminium plate up to eight inches thick and will be supporting the company’s existing AL200 machine, which can cut aluminium up to 10 inches thick. Run in parallel, the machines will be linked to an inline twin cyclone vacuum swarf extraction system and serviced by two overhead cranes.

Featuring a heavy, rigid construction the Mayer AL160 can accept saw blades up to 600mm diameter and make cuts up to 4,200mm long. The saw carriage runs on large linear guideway bearings and is driven by a helical toothed rack, resulting in fast and smooth traverse and cutting rates of up to 60m/minute. An automated rapid approach system takes the saw carriage at high speed to a position close to the raw material and automatically switches to the adjusted cutting feed speed. The position of the saw carriage is shown graphically on the machine’s control screen.

The Mayer PC6100 is a PC-based control system running Windows XP with a 19 inch TFT flat screen interface. The control is internet ready, can easily be connected to a local network and also connected to a label printer. The programming data input required is kept to a minimum, minimising human error – the trim cut for example is calculated automatically. The actual size of the residual material (length and width) is always indicated during the program input so the operator does not need to make any calculations.

The cut length is adjusted automatically by an electronic axis controlled by the PC6100, which also controls the automatic cutting height adjustment. The packed height of any raw material is measured by the clamping beam and subsequently the saw blade projection is adjusted to remain constant. This guarantees an optimum saw cut, and if the saw motor is overloaded or deflection of the saw blade goes beyond set parameters it is automatically pulled out of the cut.

Amari Aerospace provides a wide spectrum of customer services support, from a basic enquiry for a pre-cut billeted standard grade of material right through to a full material management service, incorporating billet preparation, material kitting and JIT/Kanban supply, metallurgical support and material testing services. The company also provide a quick response service for AOG (Aircraft on Ground) incidents, ensuring the customer can get an aircraft airworthy in the minimum amount of time.

The new machine will open opportunities to take additional business with improved capacity. While this additional investment has been made to develop new business, it also supports a number of specific OEM contracts where the company is supplying cut to size, close tolerance plate billets direct to line at POU (point of use) and their wider subcontract engineering customer base.

“The additional capacity is absolutely crucial to maintain our reputation in the industry for rapid turnaround on processed plate,” Mr Enright adds. “Without any doubt plate is our largest growth product and the additional capacity will see us produce over 1,000 tonnes per annum of processed plate in the coming year.”

Amari Aerospace has an extensive stock of high grade materials, from aluminium alloys to titanium and nickel-based Heat Resistant Super Alloys, as well as stainless steels, available in billet, plate and tube.

Amari Aerospace
www.amari-aerospace.com