CNC machining for aerospace parts manufacturing
CNC machining has satisfactorily met the requirements of the aerospace industry for precision and accuracy in the manufacture of parts and components. A wide variety of machining processes that are handled through CNC machines and equipment are ideal for the constantly evolving and highly technical industry. Programming software that is used in CNC milling, CNC turning and CNC lathes allow the creation of individual parts and components that would be needed to complete a design.
Over the last few years, it has become more challenging for aerospace parts manufacturing to meet the challenges of the aerospace industry. Such challenges have pushed machine shops to invest in CNC machines and equipment to be more competitive down the road. Most of the recent efforts in aerospace parts manufacturing to be more efficient and productive include the integration of 4-axis and 5-axis machining. Machining shops traditionally used 3-axis machining but with the advantages of 4-axis and 5-axis machining they can perform simultaneous machining tasks.
The 4-axis and 5-axis simultaneous machining has programming software that allows the creation of tool paths cross complex shapes that will be quite impossible with 3-axis machining. 4-axis and 5-axis machining also include rotary tables that significantly reduces the amount of part handling that was previously required during 3-axis operations. Manual handling of parts that have to be machined takes a lot of time and efforts but with simultaneous machining operations on one machine, parts are handled less frequently which greatly reduces the manpower involved in the operations. In addition, it also cuts down on the amount of stock and work in process that was previously staged on the machines.
On the other hand, 4-axis and 5-axis machining used in aerospace parts manufacturing requires different programming considerations from the 3-axis machines. Even small adjustments can affect the rotary as well as the linear axis that is why it is important to assign a centerline of the A-axis table as a common zero position so that it does not change as the table rotates.
Multi-axis machining in one setup is very significant in maintaining feature to feature accuracy of complex aerospace parts. For example, an aircraft wing requires 4-axis machining because none of its surfaces is normal to the others. Positioning in 4-axis will enable its four sides to be machined in one setup. However, this aerospace part can be quite challenging if the machine shop is not provided with 3D solid model that will be the basis of the art model. However, with CAM package with 4-axis and 5-axis modules, complex work can be performed within the machine shops capabilities.