Walter trains Olympus apprentices

Apprentices at Olympus Engineering have gained unprecedented levels of tooling competence to boost their learning and careers at the Stoke-based company after Walter GB offered free training and awareness in tooling and production technologies.

By transferring some of its ‘Engineering Kompetenz’ skills to the eight apprentices, “Walter’s in-depth tooling expertise has given a massive boost to the youngsters’ production engineering knowledge base”, says Olympus Engineering’s quality and technical manager Will Mitchell.
The apprentices and Walter GB spent 30 minutes a week over a three-month period covering subjects such as manufacturing economics, the fundamentals of metal cutting and cutting-tool applications, as well as discussing a production environment case study. Walter has been supplying the 157-employee, £16m turnover business with a range of tooling for some time. Indeed, for the past 12 years, Walter has been the company’s main tooling integrator, an arrangement that has included the provision of onsite tooling vending machines.
For further information www.walter-tools.com

Seco sets date for ‘Inspiration through Innovation’

The annual ‘Inspiration through Innovation’ best-practice manufacturing event hosted by Seco Tools will take place on 9-10 October at the company’s technology centre in Alcester.

This year, the event will be focused exclusively on the aerospace segment. Some 30 technical partners will be taking part in eight aerospace machining demonstrations. Specific components being machined will include blisks, discs, landing gear parts, structural rib components and seating parts. The event is free to attend, and doors open on both days at 09:00, closing at 19:00 on the 9 October and 16:00 on 10 October.
For further information www.secotools.com/iti

Mazak helps secure 5G award

The team at Yamazaki Mazak is celebrating after helping the Worcestershire 5G Consortium win ‘Most Commercially Viable Use Case’ at the inaugural 5G Realised Use Case Awards.

Led by Worcestershire County Council and the Worcestershire Local Economic Partnership (LEP), the consortium received the award at the recent 5G Realised Event in London. Mazak was chosen as part of the consortium thanks to its pioneering work implementing Industry 4.0 design principles into its array of machine tools and CNC technology.
Mazak trialled an augmented reality (AR) app designed to provide field service engineers with remote support. The AR app helps engineers to measure end-to-end speed and latency, and gain an insight into the future potential of 5G for industry. Tim Gane, business systems director at Yamazaki Mazak UK, says: “5G represents a tremendous opportunity to further accelerate productivity growth, and enable even quicker data transfer and analysis for manufacturers. With potential speeds of up to 10 Gb per second, 5G will be the industry standard for connectivity in the future.”
For further information www.mazakeu.co.uk

Date nears for Deburring Expo

Whether traditional or new manufacturing processes are involved, none of the available technologies make it possible to produce component surface finishes in the required quality.

Process steps such as deburring, rounding and cleaning, as well as targeted functional or decorative surface finishing, are thus indispensable. Solutions by means of which these tasks can be executed reliably and economically will be presented at Deburring Expo 2019 in Karlsruhe on 8-10 October.
Parts manufacturing is currently faced with new tasks in numerous areas. Due to more and more complex geometries and finer structures, machined, formed, primary formed, forged, sintered and moulded workpieces are not only resulting in stricter requirements where actual parts production is concerned, but also during deburring and surface finishing. The technical cleanliness of components is an essential quality criterion in many sectors, including automotive, aerospace, machine building, medical engineering, metrology, sensor technology and drive technology, as well as electro-mobility.
“Reliable deburring, during which extremely fine burrs and flash must also be removed depending on the degree of required cleanliness, is a fundamental prerequisite for complying with cleanliness specifications,” explains Hartmut Herdin, managing director of fairXperts GmbH & Co. KG, promoters of Deburring Expo.
Furthermore, in some cases, surfaces are required that minimise friction, wear and noise, and which make it possible to enhance performance and extend service life. Downstream processes such as joining, sealing, coating and assembly also necessitate burr-free, and in some cases, rounded edges, for various reasons. And thus for example, in the field of sheet metal processing, deburring minimises the risk of injury due to sharp edges and reduces tooling wear for edging and straightening machines. In addition, good deburring and well-defined edge rounding make it possible to enhance painting quality at the edges.
For further information www.deburring-expo.de

Laser texturing of titanium implants

Today, the gold standard for titanium implants features textured surface on all areas where integration with bone needs to take place.

Traditionally, these functional textured surfaces have been achieved through the use of grit blasting (also known as sand-blasting), either alone or in combination with chemical etching. However, laser texturing replaces a random process such as blasting or etching, with a digital one.
Pulses of laser light, often delivered in a nitrogen or argon shield gas environment, are directed at the material surface. The laser heats and modifies the metal, creating local surface deformation. Pulse duration, measured in nano-, pico- or femtoseconds, is very short and the impact location and pattern are precisely controlled with an end result that is repeatable, clean, requires no consumables, needs no secondary handling, and does not require 100%
final inspection.
The use of laser texturing allows a surface to be structured/textured with a precise, repeatable pattern and enables both product engineers and manufacturers to design in and meet more exacting specifications for roughness. Multiple different textures can also be applied on the same device without any need for masking, while elements such as 2D barcodes or other UDI features can be easily integrated.
A key criterion in the quality of a laser texturing solution is the ability of the system to correctly compensate for curved surfaces. Most commercially available systems introduce errors when applying a texture to curved geometry. However, GF Machining Solutions’ laser texturing machine tools make use of advanced software to allow the texturing of even the most complex surfaces.
For further information www.gfms.com