TaeguTec shapes up aerospace industry

In ancient Greek mythology, Daedalus and his son Icarus escaped King Minos’s imprisonment on Crete using feathers bonded together by wax. Tragically, Icarus, intoxicated by the ability to fly, ignored his father’s warning not to fly too close to either the sun or water and fell to his death. While a myth, this story ironically justified the  importance  of  materials  and  their tolerance for the ability to fly safely.

Today,  planes like the Boeing 787 Dreamliner,  which are made from composite materials,  require  cutting tools that meet the realities of shaping components that are made from a variety of metals ranging from simple-to-cut to very difficult-to-cut and shape.

“Regardless of the material used in the industry, most tier one and two customers we serve, find the challenge of machining isn’t the material itself; it is productivity that  turns  out  to  be  the  issue,”  said TaeguTec’s Aerospace Project Manager Han Seong-sik.

Titanium alloy is an example he used, “there is big demand for cutting tools as machine shops need to remove 80-90 percent of the material to meet the final dimension and tolerance criteria demanded by the aerospace industry.”

TaeguTec’s Chase2Feed is a cost effective solution for customers looking to speed up their production time as well as reduced cycle time with stable machining.

Considering the challenges posed by machining exotic materials used in aerospace, Han understands customers’ needs and looks for answers that will benefit the company’s bottom line.

“Quite a few aerospace industry suppliers are also used to machining for the automotive or wind mill sector where machining speeds can reach 400 meters per minute and feed rates of 0.4 or 0.5 millimetres per revolution,” he said.

Yet, the aerospace sector is not so easy “as the metals used are super alloys such as Inconel 718 where the average machining speed is 50 m/min with a feed rate .15 mm.” This means low productivity when compared to normal alloys.

For his team, increasing productivity does not only mean recommending new generation cutting tool  lines such as Chase2Feed, ChaseMold end mills or poly crystalline diamond type cutting tools, but it requires a close relationship with thecustomer to ensure their optimal tooling solution. TaeguTec aerospace engineers examine a company’s machines, cutters and inserts as well as the speed and feed rates used in order to make recommendations that would result in the fastest material removal rate.

Han cites one customer who received a contract to supply blisks (mono turbine disks) for aero turbine engines to a major aerospace  engine  manufacturer.  Even though they had been producing aerospace components for some time, it was the first time this company, who wished to remain nameless, machined blisks.

He was approached by this customer and initially he believed that for an oversized component the  ChaseMold line of inserts, a tough cEntrainement Nike