Produced with the Highest Precision

Top: The manufacturing of precise free-form surfaces for turbine blades demands the highest performance from the CNC. The excellent block-cycle times of the Sinumerik 840D sl and its look-ahead function improved as part of the new Advanced Surface motion control, which plays a significant role here. Bottom: Leading turbine manufacturers are particularly impressed by the dynamics and high performance of the high-speed turning-milling series (HSTM) machines. The perfect interaction of the robust Hamuel machine construction and the high-quality Siemens drive and control engineering provide the basis for this satisfaction.

The complete machining of turbine blades requires striking a balance between powerful roughing and ultra-precise finishing, a task for which the modern 5-axis turning-milling centers are ideal, when robust machine construction combines with high-quality drive and control engineering.

Experience is the solid basis on which the Hamuel Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, Meeder, Germany, can offer a great deal: with 85 years of machine tool manufacturing, 35 years of CNC machining, 25 years of 5-axis simultaneous machining, and more than 10 years in the construction of 5-axis turning/milling centers.

Dr. Markus Stanik, CEO, the Hamuel Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG, knows that experience, by itself, cannot be any yardstick for the quality of machine tools.

“It certainly helps us, together with the right partner companies, to design and build the machines so that our customers can be successful in the marketplace,” Stanik states.

This machine builder and its many customers have developed correspondingly positive accomplishments together.

Today, Hamuel stands on three standards:

• The production of machine-tool components (such as axis units, machine bases, and machine bodies)
• The development and construction of CNC-gantry milling machines
• The production of 5-axis turning-milling centers

The latter, as evidenced by Hamuel’s high-speed turning-milling series (HSTM), has been available since 1999, making a decisive contribution to the sales and success of the company. Particularly impressed by the dynamic response, capability, and precision of these machines are leading turbine manufacturers from the aerospace and power-generating industries.

No Faults Accepted
The HSTM that runs on the Sinumerik 840D sl CNC controllers is used mainly to manufacture turbine blades and blisks (turbine disks) deployed in stationary steam and gas turbines, as well as in mobile turbines for aircraft jet engines and large turbochargers. These products always consist of high-strength materials, such as titanium or high-alloyed steels. Form deviations are taboo in such applications, because even the smallest error would significantly reduce the efficiency of the turbines. Correspondingly high and comprehensive are the requirements placed on the machine tools.

Form deviations are unacceptable for products such as turbine blades and blisks, because even the smallest error would significantly reduce the efficiency of aircraft turbine.

Hamuel sales manager, Dipl.-Ing. Jochen Schaede, explains: “Our customers normally manufacture large turbine blades longer than approximately 1,000mm from forging blanks. In contrast, shorter workpieces are milled from a solid piece of material with a stock-removal ratio of approximately 80%. This makes it obvious that our machines must not only rough-cut very productively but also finish with high precision.”

Whereas productivity takes precedence for rough-cutting, accuracy is more important for the subsequent finishing of the spatial free-form surfaces.

“With regard to accuracy, our high-performance machining centers achieve a precision in the micrometer range coupled with excellent surface quality,” Schaede adds.

Key to this capability is the combination of compact machine construction together with perfectly matched drive and control engineering. The basis is the robust machine design with a one-piece machine base – either as welded construction cast with special concrete or latterly and directly as polymer-concrete made from a single piece of material. The careful distribution of the masses ensures the best dynamic rigidity.

The experience of the developers at Hamuel paired with the knowledge of the Siemens mechatronic experts make such results possible, as Schaede confirms.

“Thanks to various simulation tools, the Siemens engineers could provide us with very exact data to which we could add or remove masses,” he says. “It was certainly advantageous that we could procure all components required for the dynamics from Siemens starting with the spindle, including the axis drives, and ending with the CNC. This means we needed only a few iteration loops in order to obtain a perfect dynamic rigidity in the machines.”

It is also important that all components are arranged so that the horizontally clamped turbine blades and blisks are machined optimally. This is also facilitated by the 45° inclined orientation of the axes, which ensures a favorable swarf removal further augmented by the permanent rinsing of the machine internal area. The accessibility has also been enhanced by this inclined axis orientation.

Hamuel CEO Dr. Markus Stanik (right) and sales manager Jochen Schaede agree: “The Sinumerik 840D sl CNC complements the capabilities of our 5-axis turning-milling centers in the high-speed turning-milling series.”

The design and build of HSTM machines equipped with precise direct drives from Siemens achieve a maximum positioning accuracy of 5µm with traversal speeds exceeding 40mpm in all linear axes. The extremely fast rotary axes have a positioning accuracy of 3µm. This allows the user to achieve maximum productivity, accuracy, and surface finishes in the range of Ra = 0.8µm, fully meeting the industry requirements placed on the blade machining.

Optimized Surface Transitions
One of the biggest challenges for the turbine-blade manufacturing industry concerns the critical surface transitions (leading and trailing edges) of the turbine blades. To achieve high quality, the milling paths described with curve interpolation points must have a constant machining speed. Therefore, the leading and trailing edges demand extreme angular accelerations. The number of curve interpolation points to be described is correspondingly quite high.

The controller now faces the challenge to reliably process the generated NC steps that are supported by the fast block cycle times and the look-ahead function of the CNC.

“Hardly any other controller can supply the drive information for all five axes in the required short time as reliably as the Sinumerik 840D sl controller,” Schaede confirms. “The new Advanced Surface motion control that includes, among other things, an optimized look-ahead function is also excellent. And I would also like to mention the 5-axis high-speed turning-milling of free-form surfaces requires a continuous spatial reorientation of the geometry vectors.”

This leads to the use of the Traori (transformation orientation) principle in the Sinumerik 840D sl. Hamuel’s customers are able to achieve reproducible results with the best-possible surface finish, exact contour accuracy and with the maximum possible machining speed.

In addition to the primary properties of precision, productivity, and reliability, Hamuel also appreciates other properties of the Siemens drive and control engineering, such as the DRIVE-CLiQ interface. When this digital connection is used, all appropriately equipped drive components are detected automatically. Only a cable for the connection is required to achieve this result. Equivalent circuit diagram data for the motors and the characteristic values of the installed encoder systems are all stored. This avoids the need for manual data input during the commissioning, making this task more reliable and much faster, according to Hamuel engineers.

Sales manager Schaede is also impressed with the know-how protection onboard the control. With the help of innovative software, his customers can protect all their programs and their application expertise, using individual passwords, preventing unauthorized access.

According to Hamuel, the teleservice offered by Siemens has proven to be an important advantage for its machine users who often operate globally. It allows not only the rectification of software problems, but also fast and reliable installation updates without needing to be present onsite. Manufacturing operations save time and money, and they always remain up-to-date with the latest software releases, via this service.

Powerful Spindle, Hirth Gearing
The capability of the turning-milling center also depends greatly on the 54kW motor spindle made by Weiss Spindeltechnologie GmbH (a Siemens subsidiary). Equipped with a HSK A63 tool holder, it is able to provide the high torque required for roughing plus speeds as high as 16,000rpm for finishing. This means an optimum cutting speed is always guaranteed. As a practical detail, the Hamuel engineers also emphasize the integrated Hirth gearing that makes it possible to clamp the spindle and relieve load on the bearings during the turning process.

The machine sizes in the HSTM series are oriented to the length of the workpieces to be produced in standard ranges from ≤500mm (HSTM 300) to 1,750mm (HSTM 1500). On special request, Hamuel also builds larger machines. A project for machining blades as large as 2,500mm in length is currently running in the field.

“Thanks to our modular machine construction, we are able to satisfy special requests and build turning-milling centers in these dimensions,” Stanik explains.

Turbine blades and blisks (turbine disks) always consist of high-strength materials, such as titanium or high-alloyed steels. Form deviations are taboo in such applications.

New developments already in the introductory phase are also evolving at Hamuel. For example, in the near future, a special gas will be able to cool the tool in the HSTM machines, while currently, a machine base made of mineral casting is available. One of the first machines of this type made its premier at EMO.

“This material not only exhibits excellent properties with regard to vibration suppression but we have also been able to reduce somewhat our dependency on steel suppliers,” Stanik notes.

For the machine user, this makes itself apparent directly in improved surface quality and a significantly longer tool service life.

Siemens Industry Inc., Drive Technologies – Motion Control (Machine Tools)
Elk Grove Village, Ill.
www.usa.siemens.com/cnc

Hamuel Maschinenbau GmbH & Co. KG
Meeder, Germany
www.hamuel.de