. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CAsting innOVAtiOns
Robotics Could Make Rapid Production of Large Parts Easier, Cheaper
ing sand molds for casting, but the company recognized a shortcoming to its process: the size of the parts it made was limited by the size and shape of the machines it used. Clinkenbeard had been approached
F
in the past by customers who needed a large part quickly. But machines large enough to produce such parts are rare and expensive and operate more slowly than smaller machines. Tooling was ex- pensive and time-consuming to produce. Clinkenbeard partnered with the American Metalcasting Consortium to
or more than a decade, Clinkenbeard, Rockford, Ill., has been producing parts using rapid production meth- ods, including CNC machin-
run a feasibility test on the use of ro- botic technology to rapidly produce sand molds and cores for large parts. Because a robot moves indepen-
dently of the work piece, it has the ability to feed as quickly on a large part as it does on a smaller, lighter part. “We thought, why couldn’t we try
a robot?” said Ron Gustafson, Clinken- beard president. “We can use a big piece of sand and machine really fast, without sand getting caught in the machine cavity.” For the study, Clinkenbeard
leased a 6-axis robot and bought a drive motor. “What we had to look for was dis-
tance of reach for what we needed and the ability to carry the weight that
we needed,” Gustafson said. “And we needed more than 3-axis.” Clinkenbeard robotically machined a
mold for a lower oil pan casting for U.S. military Humvees that was 22 in. long, 16 in. wide and 14 in. deep. It conducted a parallel test with its CNC machine. “We had no idea going into it how
it was going to work, but I thought it made sense,” Gustafson said. “After we went through the process, we saw that it was very fast. We mod- eled the gating, cavity and core and machined everything with the robot. When we poured the casting, it came out great.” Gustafson said the prep time for
making the molds and cores was the same for the CNC machine and robot.
48 MetAl CAsting Design & PurChAsing
July/August 2010
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