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Sandvik Coromant invests in R&D

Fri, 24 May 2013 10:01:39 GMT

During April, Sandvik Coromant inaugurated its newly updated R&D Centre for solid end mills in Rovereto Italy.

The unit is the company's first R&D office in Italy and the third to be upgraded as part of a new global Research and Development cluster comprising offices in Sheffield and Halmstad, Sweden.

The cluster is responsible for research and new product development within the areas of round tools for drilling, threading and milling. The sites have been subject to a multi-million SEK investment including purpose built work environments, test workshops and state of the art laboratories. In Italy, the centre has also received partial funding from the autonomous region of Trento, a part of Italy that lends strong support to research and development as part of its economy.

“The investments in our round tools operations in Halmstad, Sheffield and Rovereto supports the development of global R&D and is also an important part of the increasing diversity within Sandvik Coromant,” says Göran Berter, vice president R&D at Sandvik Coromant.

As the industry becomes more and more technologically advanced, the demand on rapid R&D and speed in production increases. Sandvik Coromant’s global set-up allows it to work closely with customer development projects resulting in optimised products, value added applications and new productivity standards. Today the company is cooperating with more than 70 external competence centres, universities and institutes (including the AMRC in Sheffield) on projects involving alloy development, application development, the formulation of new calculation and simulation techniques and material modelling.

The new 800m² R&D Centre in Italy is twice the size of the existing facility. The workshop and laboratory have been refurbished and the machine park extended with new machines and the latest generation 3D scanning and simulation technology.

The department’s activities include tool design, experimentation, and the development of new products, technological research, new milling techniques and new materials.

Sandvik Coromant
www.sandvik.coromant.com

Living and learning in a material world

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:01:39 GMT

Seco Tools (UK), a leading supplier of complete machining solutions to the metalcutting industry is running a series of seminars focusing on best practice machining of hard and difficult to machine materials.

The first seminar on machining titanium and titanium alloys will be held on 26th June 2013 at the company’s new Technology Centre in Alcester, with three other seminars on machining stainless steels, machining nickel and nickel-based alloys, and machining composites destined for July, September and October respectively.

All four seminars will combine practical machining demonstrations with keynote presentations from leading industry experts and Seco’s own specialist technical staff, with specific topics covered including: an introduction to each material and its current (and future) use and application; the characteristics and properties of each material and how these affect its machinability; advanced machining methods and best practice solutions (including machining strategies and tooling selection).

Mike Fleming, technical and marketing manager at Seco explained: “The seminars achieve the optimum balance between theory and practice. For example our titanium seminar in June will feature presentations from Dr Wei Ming Sim, machining technologist at Airbus and Dr Richard Hood, lecturer at the University of Birmingham in the morning session, whilst after lunch attendees will be able see a number of titanium machining demonstrations on our CNC machine tools, using the latest advanced tooling solutions, and have the opportunity to discuss their own machining challenges directly with our engineers.”

There are three different machining demonstrations planned for the titanium seminar: MEP (Mechanical Edge Profiling); the advantages of high pressure Jetstream Tooling; and high feed, high performance milling strategies.

The seminars are all provided free of charge and further information, including confirmation of attendance, can be obtained by visiting the company’s website or by calling Seco on 01789 764341.

The full programme is listed below.

Titanium: 26th June 2013
Stainless steels: 4th July 2013
Nickel: 25th September 2013
Composites: 23rd October 2013

Seco
www.secotools.com/uk/challenged

Making light work of lapping

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:01:39 GMT

Superabrasives specialist Engis is offering UK customers a range of flatness gauges to assist in achieving best lapped part quality.

The maintenance of lap plate flatness throughout the whole of the lapping process is essential for the manufacture of consistent high quality production components. The reason for this is that, generally, parts lap to a mirror image of the lapping plate with respect to flatness – if the lap plate is excessively concave, the lapped parts will be convex, and vice-versa.

It is important therefore, to periodically check the flatness of the plate and make any necessary adjustments. Engis flatness gauges provide an accurate and economical means to measure the flatness of lapping plates and are durable and corrosion resistant, having been designed to withstand the rigours of a production environment.

Engis
www.engis.uk.com

Moving forward

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:01:39 GMT

The Forum of Private Business has said today’s second revised Q1 GDP figures are welcome confirmation that the UK economy is heading in the right direction.

“No one likes to use the term ‘green shoots of recovery’ any more, but it certainly seems to be that this is what we are seeing,” said the Forum’s chief executive, Phil Orford.

“There may still be stormy times ahead, particularly with the Europe situation, but this confirmed GDP figure certainly points to the UK economy coming into bud. Just how long before we see it in full bloom will depend on many external factors, but this will be pleasing for businesses as the figure has not been revised down as we’ve seen previously.

“Hopefully this will be the confidence boost SMEs have been waiting for, and will help kick start the UK economic engine which has so far been spluttering. What we need now is for those businesses that have been sitting on cash reserves while the economy was in the doldrums to go out and invest, driving job growth and creating wealth – something that’s been absent for a very long time.

“We don’t expect there’ll be champagne corks popping in Downing Street just yet, but they might want to dust off a few bottles for later in the year if we see more sustained growth from Q2.

“Next week’s BDRC bank lending figures will also make interesting reading and could well give a clearer indication as to how business is faring.”

Forum of Private Business
www.fpb.org

A view of things to come

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:01:39 GMT

Doosan Infracore has recently held its ninth DIMF Show (Doosan International Machine Tools Fair) at its Namsan factory in Changwon, South Korea.

The show, which took place from 14-16 May 2013, was aimed primarily at Doosan’s global network of subsidiary companies, dealers and distributors and. Representatives from Mills CNC, the exclusive distributor of Doosan machine tools in the UK and Ireland, were in attendance.

Some 63 machines made their debuts at the event: 26 lathes/turning centres; 25 machining centres; four EDM machines and four Swiss turn sliding head lathes, were viewed by over 3,500 visitors.

A particular focus this year was on machining large sized precision parts commonly found in the oil/gas, power generation and aerospace segments. As a consequence, Doosan’s large capacity Puma horizontal and vertical lathes and its large, powerful horizontal borers and machining centres were out in force.

Nick Frampton, managing director at Mills CNC, who attended the show remarked: “Although DIMF is aimed at Doosan’s worldwide network of distributors and dealers it is not an introspective event, and its impact, although perhaps not immediate, will be noticeable around the world in the weeks and months ahead.

“Clearly not all machines exhibited at DIMF will be launched into the UK and Irish markets, and the decisions concerning what to introduce into the UK and Ireland and when – and what to hold in stock – will be carefully planned, reviewed and monitored by Mills’ senior management team.

He continued: “We know the UK and Irish markets and we know what type of machine tools precision manufacturers need and are looking for. We also know that it’s of critical importance that, prior to any machine tool introduction we are 100% confident that we can service and support any and every Doosan machine in our range. Put simply, we won’t introduce or stock machines we can’t support until through training our engineers to full competency.”

Although a little reticent about which machines may be soon making their way over to the UK and Ireland in the short term, Mr Frampton concluded: “We will be announcing a new, major machine tool launch in the autumn – and a number of machines launched at DIMF will be making their UK debuts on our stand at MACH 2014.”

Mills CNC
www.millscnc.co.uk