Product category:
Machinery and Production Equipment
News Release from: Leader Chuck Systems | Subject: Hainbuch clamping units
Edited by the Engineeringtalk Editorial
Team on 18 September 2000
Hainbuch clamping units David Brown
Radicon choice
David Brown Radicon has invested in Hainbuch clamping units from Leader Chuck Systems for use on its CNC gear hobbing and profile grinding machines
Machining the gears for heavy-duty reduction gearbox units calls for precise and rigid workholding David Brown Radicon (Textron Power Transmission) has solved these two often conflicting requirements by investing in Hainbuch clamping units from Leader Chuck Systems for use on its CNC gear hobbing and profile grinding machines
Not only are the Hainbuch units ensuring part quality, they are also helping to reduce costs through their ability to withstand the high forces created when gears are produced in a single cut.
David Brown Radicon (Textron Power Transmission) has been producing commercial gearboxes since 1903.
In 1933 it introduced innovative reduction gear units with ribbed castings and integral cooling fans that brought unprecedented performance in heat dissipation through radiation and convection.
This gave rise to the name Radicon, and innovations have continued ever since.
The latest is the G Series helical parallel shaft and bevel helical right angle drive gear units, which offer reductions of up to 70,000:1, in combined unit form, and output torques up to 80,000 Nm, in reducer form.
The G Series design is based on a modular construction that minimises the manufactured part count to save on costs and maximise product availability.
The pinions and gear wheels for these units are now being produced at a new facility set up by Radicon at the David Brown site in Penistone, Yorkshire.
Among the new machinery installed at Penistone for these tasks is a CNC gear hobber and a profile grinder, which respectively hob and finish grind the G series pinion and gear wheels to DIN 4.
The Hainbuch clamping units were purchased on the recommendation of the machine manufacturer as part of the purchase contract.
Versatility is a key characteristic of the Hainbuch system with the facility to readily switch from collet to expanding mandrel workholding.
This allows Radicon to easily changeover from pinions to gear wheels, and in each case a wide range of collet or mandrel sizes is available to accommodate parts up to 1,000 mm diameter.
Another vital feature of the Hainbuch units is the positive pull-down clamping arrangement that gives the precision and rigidity needed to accurately machine the gear parts.
The result is high-accuracy clamping of up to 0.004 mm TIR and clamping forces that are sometimes 50 per cent more, with the same drawbar pull, than a conventional jaw or collet chuck.
This is proving particularly valuable to Radicon for operations on the hobbing machine.
"When we use other clamping units we are limited by the size of cut we can take, usually taking two or more operations to hob a pinion or wheel," says the machine operator.
"With the Hainbuch system we can comfortably remove the material in a single cut." A further plus is that the same system allows finishing to DIN 4.
The Hainbuch system also lends itself to automation on the hobber.
The operator loads a part onto one of the machine's twin pallets that is then indexed into position and the part is transferred into the Hainbuch collet or mandrel.
Clamping is automatically actuated from the machine's control so that hobbing can continue without manual intervention.
In conclusion, Clifford Drake, David Brown Radicon's (Textron Power Transmission) production engineering manager, says: "While we have not previously used Hainbuch clamping units - and neither have we made the G Series parts before - it is an easy system to use and is giving excellent performance.
It is very successful.".
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