Probes improve aerospace component consistency

A Renishaw product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Mar 25, 2008

The Rolls-Royce engine component is made of Inconel, a material that has to be machined correctly the first time, as it doesn't lend itself to re-work.

Martin Aerospace has employed high-accuracy Renishaw probes and a GSPS CNC Reporter process monitoring package to reduce machining lead times and improve consistency.

Rolls-Royce has awarded it a new contract to supply an important engine component.

Appropriate use of Renishaw probing and CNC Reporter software means that the floor-to-floor time for the manufacture of this new component is now significantly improved and more consistent, with a better use of tooling.

Manufacturing the Rolls-Royce engine component, which features a complex geometry and very tight tolerances, could have proved very challenging.

It is made of Inconel, a material that has to be machined correctly the first time, as it doesn't lend itself to re-work.

Bernie Phimister, Martin Managing Director, said, "This makes it vital that the machining process is controlled at source, rather than inspecting finished components and attempting to tweak the process afterwards".

Renishaw looked at the original process and recommended a visit to Renishaw's demonstration centre, after which Martin Aerospace had a high-accuracy MP700 touch probe fitted to the twin chuck mill-turn machine producing the part.

The probe is used to measure the finished size of several features, with the operator using the printed results to update machining offsets.

Colin Tonnar, Quality Manager, explains further, "The probe was a big improvement, but there was still a manual element with the interpretation of the results".

"This is why we have recently introduced CNC Reporter, a process monitoring package provided by GSPS, which allows better use of the data that the probe provides".

After each component has been machined critical features are inspected with the Renishaw MP700 touch probe, with measured values recorded by CNC Reporter.

These values are plotted on an SPC (Statistical Process Control) chart and used to constantly adjust the process.

Grooves that take seal rings are coated and then ground with driven tooling on the mill-turn machine.

Jim McFarlane, Machine Operator and Programmer, is very pleased with the touch probe and new CNC Reporter software.

He said "It's an instant indicator, very easy to see the trend of the process".

"I can keep dimensions within the control limits and easily keep a record of every measured value".

There are also four machined holes that were being cut with new and re-ground tools, which went out of tolerance after cutting about 40 holes.

CNC Reporter has collated the results that prove that it is cost-effective to only use new tooling, which although more expensive, can cut over 80 holes before going out of tolerance.

There's also the added benefit of less downtime changing tooling.

All of this adds up to some impressive time savings.

Machining and manually inspecting the component used to take a long time, particularly when the machine was stopped while the operator worked out the best way of adjusting the offsets.

Find out more about this article. Request a brochure, download technical specifications and request samples here.
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