Even if you did not get to attend the 2017 edition of the Taipei International Machine Tool Show (TIMTOS), you can still watch Aerospace Manufacturing and Design’s Group Publisher Mike DiFranco’s presentation on the U.S. Aerospace Supply Chain. DiFranco discusses ways machine tool builders can overcome barriers to entry into the U.S. market.

Two PhD students in National University of Singapore, Unmanned System Research Group spent four years in developing the novel hybrid unmanned aerial vehicles(UAV), U-Lion.

The wings can be fully retracted or expended, to favor the stability in VTOL mode or provide efficient lift in cruise flight. U-Lion is also able to fly autonomously includes vertical take-off and landing, cruise flight and autonomous transitions. The developed technology brings the application of hybrid UAVs one step closer.

Their research result has been published in Science China Information Sciences. The research work is mainly done by Wang Kangli, Ke Yijie under the supervision of Professor Chen.

Over the last decades, hybrid UAV has attracted worldwide interest for their potential applications in military and civilian operations, especially where there are severe constraints in their operating environment, for example, sea surveillance or forest mapping. The VTOL capability minimizes the dependency of the take-off and landing facilities and cruise flying capability allows hybrid UAVs to perform long range and duration tasks. The hybrid UAV is a hot research topic not only academically, but also commercially. Many companies have devoted resources in developing hybrid UAVs, such as Google Project Wing.

However, due to the great difference in the structure for VTOL UAVs and fixed-wing UAVs, it is a huge challenge to combine the two functionalities into one single UAV. Previous attempts of hybrid UAVs tend to focus on either one of the flying modes, but not optimal on both. Besides, due to the high uncertain aerodynamic forces in the transition process, the transition process is difficult to automate.

To achieve optimal performance in both flying modes, U-Lion is designed in tail-sitter configurations with reconfigurable wings and vectoring thrust. U-Lion could adopt different flying modes based on the mission requirements, and adjust the wings to achieve optimal performance. The ability allows U-Lion to fly much longer than typical VTOL UAVs and possess greater maneuverability compared to normal fixed wing UAVs. Advanced modelling and control algorithm is also developed for overcoming the uncertainties in transition and achieve autonomous full envelope flight.

"U-Lion, the autonomous hybrid UAV, has great potentials in many applications,." Kangli says. "The VTOL capability has widened its application environment and cruise capability enables it to performance long range tasks. The autonomous capability relieves the dependency of experience pilots and further expands its applications."

"Being optimal in both flying modes, U-Lion may bring a new way people operates drones. The fast reaction and static hovering capabilities bring U-Lion great potential in many applications, the VTOL capability allows it to operate in almost anywhere, including on vehicles on the sea," Ke Yijie says. "In five to ten years' time, hybrid UAV will change the way people operate in areas like forest mapping, sea surveillance, power line inspection and disaster reaction. Being one of the best hybrid UAV, U-Lion will certainly lead the trend for future applications."

Precision boring of complex aerospace parts requires good tools, machines, and coolants, and a defined, repeatable process. With very demanding requirements, the difference between a good aerospace part and a scrapped one can be just a few tenths of an inch on a bore. The tolerances are not much different than in other industries, but the penalty for a scrap part due to an oversized bore is completely opposite. Aerospace workpieces are usually made from hard metals such as stainless steel, Inconel, or titanium – all very tough materials to precision bore – with some forgings costing more than $30,000 each before the first cutting tool starts to work. To make the situation even more difficult, the precision boring operations are usually the last to be done, so any scrap due to oversize holes means hours of previous milling and threading are lost.

The challenge

LORD Corp., a Cary, North Carolina, manufacturer of expensive and complex aerospace parts was working on a prototype design to produce an engine mount at its Dayton, Ohio, facility. The company’s engineers had a difficult time producing precision bores on these parts in tolerance, and the cost for producing a single scrapped part was equal to the company’s entire monthly budget. The need to develop a process improvement became a top priority.

 

The engine’s forging – made from Inconel 718 – was heat treated to Rc40. The mechanical properties for this material classified it as a nickel-based superalloy, developed for high-strength, high temperature tolerance, and corrosion resistance. These characteristics make for very low machinability resulting in high cutting forces, generating more heat at the tool tip, leading to stringy and difficult-to-break chips. The material’s high nickel content also made it very abrasive, increasing tool wear. In addition, final machining and boring after heat treat intensifies the all-around difficulty.

LORD approached BIG Kaiser U.S. and Blaser Swisslube to find out how to improve boring process reliability because scrap due to an oversize hole was not tolerated under any circumstance.

“We need to instill the confidence in our engineers and operators that the parts can be bored,” says Greg Bernett, process improvement engineer for LORD.

BIG Kaiser engineers accepted the challenge and asked long-term partner Blaser Swisslube to participate and make thorough practical tests at its facility in Switzerland. Equipped with modern CNC machine tools and measuring equipment, Blaser Swisslube offered an ideal environment for the joint project. A sample workpiece of the same material and heat treat was procured, the test tools prepared, and travel arrangements by LORD and BIG Kaiser were made to Switzerland to participate in the tests.

 

The method
The test procedure was based on real world requirements from LORD: Only after a hole was successfully bored in tolerance, could engineers move on to the next one. Each hole was considered a nearly completed workpiece, worth thousands of dollars, and could not be left undersized, have excessive taper, or have bad surface finish. Most importantly, it could not be bored oversize.

“Once the hole was in tolerance, we could move to the next hole and so on, establishing not only a repeatable procedure, but also expected tool life,” says Jack Burley, vice president of sales and engineering for BIG Kaiser U.S.

The key was finding out how bore results varied based on tools with different lengths and inserts with different geometries and sharpness.

The results
Many parameters influenced the finishing process with the operation’s tight-tolerance requirements and low-machinability material. The solution was to manufacture every hole with two passes – with almost no adjustment in the diameter of the cutting edge in between. Due to radial forces, the first pass didn’t finish the hole, so a second spring pass reached the tolerance. The spring pass removed 0.0015" more diameter material than the first pass.

As inserts wear, bores get smaller with each successive cut, so when post-spring-pass bore is in the lowest quadrant of the specifications, the head adjusts to compensate. BIG Kaiser’s EWD digital head line enables these frequent adjustments.

“The heads give a zero setting that can always be a new starting point for a new insert, and each adjustment is stored in the head to give a total life for each insert, so every operator knows where the tool is,” Burley says. “Another difficulty was to reasonably predict tool deflection, something that is easier on softer metals. The longer the tool became, the more difficult it was. When tool wear is compounded with harmonics and sharper inserts, this material proves even more difficult to precision bore. We could do it, but the process was certainly much harder than with shorter tools.”

 

Stefan Appenzeller, head of product management at BIG Kaiser Switzerland, says the biggest challenge was to work out a rule for how and when to adjust the boring head. “Insert wear is about 0.0004" per bore, which helped us to predict when a tool needed to be adjusted.”

Bernett was happy that the tests were made as close to reality as possible. “Big Kaiser and Blaser Swisslube were asking for my feedback to see if each solution they proposed would be possible to re-create on the floor at LORD,” Bernett says, noting that it was interesting to see how the engineers could systematically and methodically approach the boring problems with solutions. “This was a true learning experience for me. Blaser Swisslube as our coolant partner brings in a huge know-how in regards to the whole boring process.”

“LORD is working with a coolant pressure of 80 bar. In the U.S. we have soft water and the coolant solution has to cope with the given circumstances,” says Christoph Wuethrich, head of manufacturing technology at Blaser Swisslube.

During the testing, Blaser was able to prove the current coolant is the optimal choice for the situation at LORD. Wuethrich says it is crucial to focus on the interaction of material, operation, coolant, and tool so the best results can be achieved.

Burley agrees. “I thought I had solved just about the all the toughest problems, but this material and the costs associated due to scrap were the most challenging tests I have ever made.”

This article is from the March issue of Aerospace Manufacturing and Design magazine.

The key topic of the Hannover Messe 2017 trade fair, “Integrated Industries, Creating Value,” is concerned with competitive advantage through digitalization, new business models and added value through intelligent technology, and the networking of humans and machines. Prior to the fair, Festo is introducing the breakthrough innovation “Festo Motion Terminal” along with fascinating future-oriented technologies as part of its Bionic and Future Concepts.

Digitalization is providing Festo with new opportunities for technological leadership and innovation, and will increase efficiency both in the processes within the company and for its customers.

Gerhard Borho, member of the management board of Festo AG for Finance, Information Management and Technology explains, “On the one hand our core business, in which we can better network our own processes with those of our customers and partners, is of course at the focus of our attention. However, we will also develop and market new products with embedded intelligence, which can connect themselves via the Internet, for example the Festo Motion Terminal. And to us, digitalisation also means pursuing new business models such as condition monitoring, energy efficiency or configurations.”

“Digital Customer Journey” – under this name, Festo will also be giving its customers comprehensive consultation in the virtual world in future. “Our customers will benefit from the fact that sales and consultation processes will be more continuous and the supply chain more transparent, more stable and safer,” says Gerhard Borho. In future, customers will be able to configure their machinery more rapidly via a consistently structured digital interface and test their interaction and functioning in advance by means of simulation tools together with manufacturers and operators. Embedded sensors in the products will warn against malfunctions or production stoppages before they can occur. The objective is to provide a virtual solutions consultant that bundles knowledge of our products and their interaction into a system and is at the disposal of customers and partners.

The future of pneumatics: The Festo Motion Terminal
With the Festo Motion Terminal Festo has developed a universal automation platform for highly flexible and adaptive automation with digitalized pneumatics.

“With the fusion of hardware and software, we have achieved a genuine technological leap. Over the three-year course of development not only an intelligent pneumatic automation platform for Industry 4.0 has arisen, but in fact a key innovation for future production,” says Dr. Julia Duwe, head of future motion solutions management.

A wide variety of valve functions can now be programmed and addressed via apps. The Festo Motion Terminal, which combines the functions of over 50 individual components, is a door-opener and enabler for companies that want to make their production fit for Industry 4.0.

Innovations from the Bionic Learning Network in 2017: A bionic approach to robotics
The projects of the Bionic Learning Network serve as development platforms that bring together a wide variety of technologies and components.

“This year we are presenting future-oriented robot concepts on the basis of pneumatics,” says Dr. Elias Knubben, head of corporate bionic projects.

All three projects show what hazard-free, direct human-robot collaboration could look like in future. At the focus here are bionically inspired lightweight robots with natural movement patterns that make them highly suitable for collaborative working spaces; in future they could represent a cost-efficient alternative to classic robot concepts. According to Knubben, such robots can be used as assistance systems for relieving the human operator above all in monotonous or dangerous work processes.

BionicCobot – a pneumatic lightweight robot with human movement dynamics

The movement patterns of the BionicCobot are modelled on those of the human arm, from the shoulder via the upper arm, elbow, radius and ulna down to its gripping hand. Each of its seven joints makes use of the natural operating mechanism of the biceps and triceps – the efficient interplay of flexor and extensor muscles. It can thus execute very delicate movements, just like its biological model.

“The movements of the BionicCobot can be finely regulated to suit the requirements at hand so as to be either powerful and dynamic or sensitive and readily yielding, so that the system cannot endanger humans even in the case of a collision,” Knubben states.

“This is made possible by the pneumatic automation platform – the Festo Motion Terminal, which unites high-precision mechanics, sensors and complex control and measuring technology within a very small space. Depending on the task to be carried out, the BionicCobot can be fitted with different gripping systems, such as the OctopusGripper. The operations are intuitively carried out by means of a specially developed graphic user interface: the user can teach the BionicCobot the actions to be performed and parametrise them – “a special feature,” Knubben says.

BionicMotionRobot – a lightweight robot with natural forms of movement
“We also sought inspiration from nature for our second lightweight pneumatic robot,” Knubben says. “The elephant’s trunk and the octopus’s tentacles can move in a highly flexible way thanks to their intricately detailed kinematics.”

The BionicMotionRobot effortlessly emulates these fluent movement patterns with its flexible pneumatic bellows structure and corresponding valve and control technology. The concept of inherently flexible kinematics is derived from the Bionic Handling Assistant from 2010, which received the German Future Award. A new type of outer skin made from a 3D textile knitted fabric now enables the BionicMotionRobot to fully deploy the great force potential of the entire kinematic system. The bionic robot arm thus has a loadbearing capacity of almost three kilograms – with around the same net weight.

OctopusGripper – gripping modelled on the octopus’s tentacle
Festo is presenting a bionic gripper called the OctopusGripper, which is derived from an octopus’s tentacle. The gripper consists of a soft silicone structure that can be pneumatically controlled. If compressed air is applied to it, the tentacle bends inwards and can wrap around the object being gripped in a form-fitting and gentle manner. Just as with its natural model, two rows of actively and passively controlled suction cups are arranged on the inside of the silicone tentacle.

“We developed the silicone tentacle in cooperation with the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation at Beihang University (BUAA) in China,” Knubben reports. “This is a further example of our worldwide project partnerships that we are pursuing in the context of our Open Innovation initiative in the Bionic Learning Network.”

SupraMotion 2017: Transporting and maneuvring in suspension with superconductivity
Festo is showcasing three new, exciting concepts for the industrial application of superconductor technology at the Hanover Messe 2017. With SupraDrive a suspended transport sledge can operate highly dynamically, with SupraShaker a suspended vibration system with tilting option is realized. SupraLoop shows how the superconductor technology can be easily combined with other transport systems.

“The special characteristics of superconductors open up great potential for them wherever contact-free storage or handling is required. Automation can thus make inroads into areas of application that until now have been regarded as not or only hardly accessible to automation,” says Georg Berner, head of strategic corporate development, Group Holding Festo and Project Coordinator for the SupraMotion concepts. “We have now developed a total of 15 different concepts for four key areas of automation: transportation in any spatial orientation, transferring suspended objects between systems, maneuvring objects at a distance, and exchanging suspended objects and setting them in motion. We are currently working together with customers on launching some initial pilot projects.”

Festo at the Hannover Messe 2017
From 24th to 28th April 2017 at its main booth in Hall 15, Booth D11, Festo will be exhibiting its Festo Motion Terminal along with further product innovations for factory and process automation and the new Future and Bionic Concepts. Further booths with Festo products are in in Hall 8 Booth D20 (SmartFactory KL), Hall 9 Booth D68 (PROFIsafe) and Hall 19 Booth A60 (Predictive Maintenance).