Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) chief executive Dr Clive Hickman is spearheading a drive to establish a technology partnership with India.

The far-reaching link-up aims to increase trade, investment, technology and skills transfers between the UK and the sub-continent. Dr Hickman says the potential opportunities are enormous; the UK and India are among the world’s top manufacturing nations with a combined output of around £750bn. A major leadership summit – the India-UK FutureTech Festival – was attended by Dr Hickman in New Delhi last December.
For further information www.the-mtc.org

Last year’s acquisition of BTA Heller by Sunnen now sees the BTA Heller division relocated to Sunnen’s long-time headquarters in St Louis.

Sunnen says that the move will allow further development of deep-hole tooling, systems and processes for precision bore applications. The relocation from Troy, Michigan will be completed by 31 March, with key personnel making the switch.
“The transfer of knowledge between the two companies has already created unique value propositions, and Sunnen’s strong sales and service network will deliver this expertise to our customers,” says Chris Miltenberger, Sunnen president and COO.
For further information www.sunnen.com

Building on its successful company history, Neubeck & Wiedemann GmbH is well equipped and firmly established in the marketplace as a metalworking specialist. For the past eight years, wire-cutting machines from Mitsubishi Electric have had a major hand in this.

Based in Stockach, Germany, Neubeck & Wiedemann houses over 30 machine tools and 40 employees mainly producing precision components as one-offs or in series, as well as punching tools for toolmaking and the production of jigs and fixtures.
On a customer’s recommendation to integrate wire EDM technology in production, the company purchased a used Mitsubishi Electric wire-cutting machine in 2011. Jürgen Läufle, managing director, says: “This gave us an excellent opportunity to launch production in this area. The support from Mitsubishi Electric was quick and outstanding. We got off to a very fast start with the used machine. Within four to six weeks we were able to product parts without assistance. However, after two years we found that the used machine was no longer able to cope with the workload.”
The volume of orders called for investment in the first new wire EDM, an MV2400S from Mitsubishi Electric. Sometime later there was another bottleneck, and the second new machine from the Japanese manufacturer, a MV2400R Connect, was installed – it has been in operation at Neubeck & Wiedemann for the past year. The high workload of the wire-cutting machines has been fuelled by press manufacturer Schuler and demand from the company’s own punching tool activities, such as for the production of dies, punches and die plates.
The company uses coated and uncoated standard brass wire, usually of 0.25 mm diameter.
For further information www.mitsubishi-edm.de

ONA has carried out a study to analyse a wire electro-erosion process (WEDM) as an alternative to the conventional machining (broaching) of fir-tree profiles in discs for the aerospace sector.

In its research, ONA compared the EDM process with more conventional machining like broaching and milling. As key points in the research, ONA compared parameters such as the surface integrity requirements, precision and processing time of fir-tree machining. The test involved cutting a turbine disc with the following characteristics: Inconel 718 material; 350 mm outside diameter; 28 fir-tree slot profiles; slot profiles at 30°; 82 mm thick; profile tolerance of 0.01 mm; and fir-tree radial and angular positioning tolerance of 0.08 mm.
On completion of the tests, the results proved it possible to obtain a recast layer thickness in the necessary range (around 5 µm) and with sufficient precision in the fir-tree profile within a tolerance of 0.01 mm using WEDM technology. These results were obtained following one roughing pass and two finishing passes (three-cut strategy).
In worse flushing conditions (open nozzles), the material removal rate for roughing was 110 mm2/min. In fact, for the strategy used in the research (one pass for roughing and two passes for finishing), material removal rate was 60 mm2/min. On the other hand, in good flushing conditions (closed nozzles), a slight improvement in the material removal rate was observed; in the roughing process alone, it reached over 400 mm2/min.
Following the research, ONA concludes that WEDM machining of turbine disc fir-tree profiles is an extremely valid alternative to compete with broaching as an industrial solution in the aerospace sector. State-of-the-art and increasingly powerful generators, and more advanced numerical controls, allow for the optimisation of machining time and the reduction of white layer thickness.
For further information www.onaedm.com

CADCAM software expert Radan has developed a partnership with IPG IRE-Polus – a Russian division of IPG Photonics – which manufactures fibre laser machines.

The partnership provides for the new LaserCube precision flat-bed laser to be sold with the Radprofile module for programming, along with a special post-processor and set of macros. Moscow-based IPG IRE-Polus recently hosted a special training seminar on the software, conducted by an engineer from Dreambird, Radan’s official Russian and CIS distributor.
For further information www.radan.com