Launched in in June 2018, the Northern Ireland Technology Centre (NITC - www.qub.ac.uk/sites/nitc) located within the university aims to provide manufacturing industry in Northern Ireland and beyond, from one-man-bands through SMEs to large multi-national OEMs, with a range of services to improve efficiency of production.
They include consultancy, collaborative research and development (R&D), industrial training, intervention for problem solving and cycle time reduction, and taking manufacturing processes from product inception through to pre-production.
The NITC is developing into a regional centre of excellence for machining titanium, as well as aluminium structural components for aircraft, working closely with leading global aerospace companies. It has completed more than 50 knowledge transfer partnerships for Innovate UK, an area in which the university as a whole leads the way across Britain and Northern Ireland.
Availability of a similar Index machine in Northern Ireland, together with NITC staff able to investigate various applications and develop efficient, Industry 4.0-compliant process routes, meant that the G220 was an ideal solution. It had the added advantage that the centre is also able to machine batches of air bearing components to mitigate a recurring production bottleneck in the factory.
Says head of the NITC, Colm Higgins: “The Index turn-mill machine is currently being used to evaluate the possibility of raising the efficiency of rough-turning stainless steel bar. In collaboration with our customer, we are hoping to develop a technique that replaces single-point turning with a process that instead uses a milling cutter in the B-axis spindle.
"Spreading the cutting load across several inserts, rather than just one, as the bar is turning, would considerably increase the feed per tooth and, hence, metal removal rate, leading to reduced cycle times.
"Admittedly, accuracy and surface finish would not be as good, but for a roughing operation it does not matter. We are reviewing other turn-milling processes as well for this manufacturer."
The Index G220 at Queen's University Belfast has a 65 mm bar capacity and is fitted with an LNS short bar feeder. The B-axis spindle is positioned above the spindle centreline and is supplied with cutters from a 140-tool magazine. There is also a lower turret with 18 driven stations. Both tool carriers additionally move in X, Y and Z and are able to operate at either spindle.
Similar development projects are harnessing the capabilities of the six other new machine tools installed at the NITC, all of which are machining centres. Four are parallel kinematic machines, an area of particular focus for Higgins and his team of 12 engineers, a headcount that will increase by 50% by the end of 2018. The other two machines are conventional 5-axis and 3-axis vertical-spindle models.
