High Performance Processes in Aerospace Industry.

The aerospace industry is one of the key industries for the development of new manufacturing technologies. Oue to the applied materials, high demands on process productivity and quality as weil as complexity of the workpiece geometry, innovative approaches concerning process planning strategies, machine tools and machining processes are needed.

To enable new strategies for process planning, the machining farces as weil as the temperature distribution in the workpiece have to be predicted in dependency of the tool-workpiece engagement conditions. This knowledge will lead to an adapted tool path which results in a higher workpiece quality. Concerning the machine tools eurrent research foeuses the damping capability to enhance the process stability and though the productivity. An electromagnetic guide in a machine tool shows advantages concerning active process damping and accuracy of the machine tool. Furthermore, an active process damping can also be realized using an a.daptive spindIe system. Another limiting factor concerning the productivity and workpiece quality is the machining process itself. For this reason, the influence of the tool geometry on the maximum productivity for milling of titanium has been investigated. As another example, the bore quality in circular milling of CFRP-titanium stacks can be enhanced by the development of adapted tool geometries and process parameters taking tool deflection into account. A further approach to reach a higher workpiece quality are machining strategies regarding the machining induced residual stress for example in high performance milling of aluminum. This leads to reduced part distortion.

However, all three areas - process planning, machine tools and machining processes - have to be considered to reach a higher productivity as weil as a high workpiece qua/ity in machining parts for the aerospace industry.