Local Company wins Top Award at this years MWP UK Machine Tool Awards Event

Dorman Machine Tools of Coventry are celebrating following a sensational double win at this years MWP awards event for the Haas CB Multigrind Machine. The Haas CB machine that is represented in the UK by Dorman was awarded the trophy for "Best Grinding & Finishing Machine" and then went onto also being awarded the top winner of winners "Grand Prix" trophy as well.

The biennial MWP Awards are the highest profile UK awards fixture on the advanced manufacturing technology calendar and are devised to recognise and applaud outstanding achievement in the design, manufacture, supply, management and use of machine tools, production equipment and services.

The managing directors of both companies, Thomas Bader of Haas, and Chris Boraston of Dorman, were naturally delighted to have received the awards against fierce international competition with a record amount of entries. This year's awards event was attended by over 600 people from throughout the UK and Overseas engineering industries and was held at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole hotel at the NEC. This coincided with the National UK Machine Tool Exhibition (Mach), which is the long established premier exhibition for the advanced manufacturing sector, which was opened by HRH The Duke of York; Prince Andrew.

Haas/Dorman were awarded the two trophies by the president of the UK Manufacturing Technologies Association, Mr Bob Hunt, following the decision made by a judging panel of top engineers from UK Industry and Academia including Professor Keith Ridgway (AMRC), Phil Harpham (Siemens), Richard Cook (AESSEAL), Peter Hill (Rolls Royce), Dave Wright (BAE Systems), John Houseman (Confederation of British Metalforming) David Aspinwall and Leung Soo (University of Birmingham) and Professor Richard Hague (University of Loughborough). The judges praised the Haas machine stating its "exceptional flexibility, with important efficiency gains; well designed and specified, and shows good process understanding".

The President of the MTA, Bob Hunt, closed his speech commenting that "The MWP Awards celebrates the continuing importance of the people and companies who, despite the obstacles, set-backs and challenges, are still making things happen in manufacturing".

Chris Boraston, who was educated at Alderbrook School, Solihull, comments: "It is extremely pleasing indeed to have won not only the best grinding machine award but also the top Grand Prix award as well for the Haas machine. Having been nominated we felt that with the Haas CB machine we were always in with a chance of winning the best grinding machine award because we are of course well aware of the huge benefits it offers. However we were of course also knew that the trophy is always hotly contested and most of the major international machine tool builders are well represented. It was therefore of real delight when we won but never did we then expect to go onto being honoured with the Grand Prix "winner of winners" award as well. The MWP event, which in engineering is our "Oscars", being the UK's major engineering awards event, and it was evident from all of those taking part that despite what many fear that UK manufacturing is, in several high-value market sectors such as Aerospace and Medical Engineering, continuing to lead the world and to invest in the best machine tools that are available."

Technical Information Section of this Editorial follows:

The Haas Multigrind® CB machine is designed for the flexible and universal machining of components such as aero engine turbine blades, blisks and vanes and medical components such as hip joint rasps and artificial knee joints and uniquely allows for the complete machining including all milling, grinding, and production belt linishing operations. By combining all of these major processes in one automatic operation the most flexible solutions are available and as each operation is carried out automatically, and as the parts are only clamped once, the highest possible precision is guaranteed. Furthermore the Haas designed automatic tool changer and part loader systems allow for unmanned operation.

Haas has continued to expand its operations into the aerospace and power generation industries whilst continuing to offer high-end production solutions for the manufacture of artificial knee joints and associated components for the orthopaedic medical sector where it has a growing number of UK and Irish based customers.

Haas has made notable inroads into the production of aero-engine blades with sales being made to both blade refurbishers as well as blade manufacturers. The Haas machines are equipped with full automatic probe systems to measure blade profiles to determine both the spatial position of blade castings as well as worn blade profiles prior to grinding and linishing for refurbishment work. In the medical component manufacturing sector Haas has made over 500 machine sales to many of the worlds leading artificial implant manufacturers.

The Haas CB production machine has a general capacity to handle parts of up to approx 1,000 mm in length and its automatic tool changer allows for milling heads, grinding wheel sets and now belt linishing heads to be automatically changed at will to combine all necessary machining processes in one fully automatic operation.

The latest generation of high speed dressable CBN wheels are used in conjunction with another Haas development of a special in-process constant wheel dresser that can dress up to two grinding wheels simultaneously during the actual 5-axis grinding process with constant feedback of the wheel dimensions for automatic wheel wear compensation using a Dittel acoustic system that is mounted onto the grinding wheel spindle. Although Haas continues to also offer the more conventional table based diamond roll dresser devices, the use of the constant wheel dresser offers major advantages for end users as not only are grinding wheels kept in the best possible condition at all times, there is also no downtime that is associated with having to continually move the wheels to a table based dresser device for regular wheel dressing. Milling cutters are also monitored on the Haas machine using in-process laser gauging (offered by the company Blum) that check for milling cutter wear on diameter, length and radius.

With its ability to interpolate all five of its major machining axis at the same time this enables complex blade profiles to be milled and ground with ease with the resulting highly precise form also being further generated by the optional belt linishing heads.

After 4 or 5 axis milling operations on the Haas CB machine, followed by the subsequent high precision grinding operation, aero-engine blades can then be automatically belt linished in a single operation without having to remove the blade and then remount it on a conventional linishing machine. This obviously gives certain advantages in both cycle time and precision and of course also completely avoids the need for the costs associated with requiring a separate stand-alone machining process. Furthermore all linishing on the Haas CB machine is carried out wet using the oil as used for the previous milling and grinding operations. The wet linishing process is far superior to a dry process as it generates a considerably better surface finish when using identical grades of belt but also avoids the creation of any heat build-up that could damage or otherwise adversely affect the perfectly ground finishes previously created by the Haas machine.

Belt wear is also vastly reduced thus increasing belt lifetime which can become a major issue if linishing dry. Furthermore conventional belt linishing machines tend to just follow the existing geometry rather than the true CAD model for the component.

As all of the Haas machining processes, milling, grinding and linishing, all follow the exact CAD component files, upon which the machines NC programmes are automatically generated, end users are assured that exactly the precise blade form required is machined. Due to the use of the tool changer belt heads are also automatically exchanged allowing an automated 2 or 3 step linishing process using different grades of belt without any operator intervention.

Such are the advancements being made in Haas's one hit machining strategy for aero-engine blades that Haas has already proven its ability to take a complete solid rectangular block of material and to completely mill and grind out the entire blade form from the solid before linishing it to arrive at what is essentially a finished machined component. This of course includes for both the blade profile itself but also the root fixture form that is ground out at high speed using the Haas designed and built high speed balanced grinding spindle that accepts wheels of up to 300mm in diameter from the CBs automated tool changer that stores the necessary number of milling cutters, grinding wheel sets, and belt linishing heads.

By "High Speed Grinding", which is often an over-used phrase, it should be understood that the Haas CB machine is now being tested to machine turbine blades using patented very special bodied grinding wheels that have been tested at speeds that break the sound barrier (Mach 1 is 333 meters/second). Grinding taking place at speeds of 200 to 240 meters/second using wheels that have all undergone individual safety testing and certified safe at 260meters/second plus. It is generally understood that today's current speeds for high speed grinding approach just 120 meters/second. The use of these very special wheels meant increasing the thickness of the machining zones cabinet and the operator safety screens to 4mm thickness,

The Haas CB machine is a further development of the Haas HT variant and over 500 machines are in use world-wide within the medical and aerospace industries. Haas's vast experience of high speed production grinding combined with its developed milling and belt linishing processes is offering many advantages for manufacturers who are looking to carry out one hit machining to decrease cycle times, eliminate work in progress on lengthy production lines, increase precision and to ensure maximum flexibility and uptime.

Thomas Bader, MD at Haas concludes; "The HAAS MULTIGRIND® CB offers users the ultimate in precision, flexibility and productivity. The new CB is the fastest HAAS machine we've ever built, making it the answer to future challenges in the universal machining with grinders. It is especially suited to those who perform high-demand serial production and who place a high priority on the highest possible precision with exact reproducibility. Everyone at Haas is delighted to have won these top UK industry awards"

Press contacts

Chris Boraston
Dorman Machinery Ltd,
4 Percy Street,
Coventry,
United Kindom
CV1 3BY