Tongtai T51-USA harnesses ultrasound to assist hard material milling
Taiwanese manufacturer Tongtai's recently introduced T51-USA ultrasound-assisted machining centre, available in the UK from Matchmaker CNC, offers an innovative approach to the machining of hard materials.
The T51-USA uses ultrasound to machine hard materials like ceramics, glass, mould steels and sapphire. A high speed rotary spindle (up to 24,000 rpm) is partnered with high frequency ultrasound generator that creates vibrations between 15 and 45 kHz with amplitude of just a few micron.
Ultrasound-assisted machining is more commonly found on lathe and grinding machines but in high speed milling, explains Matchmaker, where small tool crossover paths and shallow depths of cut (up to 1 mm) are applied, the process delivers improved surface finishes.
The T51-USA has axis strokes of 510, 400, 350 mm, capacity for up to 10 tools in its disc carousel and is capable of cutting feedrates up to 20 m/min.
