5 Things You Need to Know about WFL Millturn Technologies

Heavy-duty cutting of exotic alloys can place huge requirements on a CNC machining centre and its working envelope when manufacturing components, especially for the aerospace industry, like landing gears, engines, flaps and so on. The competence of WFL in this area reaches the parts other machining centres cannot reach.

The nature of a MILLTURN by WFL

Maximum precision and reliable machining of complex geometries are factors that are of particular demand in the aerospace industry. WFL’s modular system allows for huge variant diversity. The machine concept is based on minimized distances between work piece and tool to the slide rails and widest possible guideway distances. This results in ideal conditions regarding stability and geometries and ensures that machining is flexible, accurate and economical.
 

The all-in-one solution

The idea is clamping the workpiece once and machine it complete. The various tools used can be stored and kept ready in the tool magazine, which minimizes clamping times while significantly improving positional accuracy. Not to mention the fact that genuine six-sided deep hole machining can only be performed during one clamping operation or two at the most. Set-up times are reduced enormously and any finishing work due to deformation resulting from other work steps can be carried out immediately.

 

The way hard material can be manufactured

If a material, such as titanium is involved which is particularly hard to cut, specific expertise is required. WFL has shown its competence in this area with machining solutions for aircraft landing gears. WFL provides individual turnkey solutions that also include topics like production strategy, tool selection and cooling as well as the actual machine. The MILLTURNs can be adapted precisely to the requirements of their customers - such as the emergency retraction, which retracts the tool from the workpiece immediately if a power outage occurs, thus preventing damage to the workpiece.

 

Manufacturing of aerospace components requires special technologies & software

When it comes to technology, WFL provides a wide range of expertise, especially in internal machining and feed out tools: deep drilling, boring, bottle boring and facing heads. All the benefits of complete machining for this type of work are being exploited, setting new standards in terms of value for the money and precision.

WFL iControl, protects the MILLTURN with up to 16 freely configurable process signals. New functions also provide data recording by means of a blackbox and process recording function. As a result, maximum safety and protection are guaranteed for the machine, tool and workpiece. In aviation in particular, this data is needed when special machining operations are performed. In these cases, the data has to be recorded. The logs provide subsequent verification that no notable incidents occurred in relation to process forces, coolant supply or other sensors.

 

Highest accuracy through integrated measurement methods 

The machining of large, heavy and complex workpieces poses significant challenges for in process probing. The probing system of the MILLTURNs is not just a touch probe, but also a complete measurement system probe that can evaluate features like surface roughness, run out roundness for example. After turning or milling a surface, the scanning probe measures the feature and feeds back the information to the machine tool’s control for automatic correction before the final cut. This assures that the finished part corresponds with the dimensional requirements.

• In-process measuring: Easy programming and probing of complex geometries with a comprehensive cycle package.

• The automatic ultrasonic wall thickness measurement is used for automatic wall thickness correction. The measurement result is displayed directly at the control in real time