Hardinge Inc., a provider of advanced metalcutting solutions and accessories, has announced that Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) recently acquired a Bridgeport GX 250 5-axis vertical machining center (VMC) for use in a collaborative partnership to integrate additive manufacturing functions into the GX 250 traditional machining platform. In addition to RIT and Hardinge, partners on the project include Hybrid Manufacturing Technologies, based in Dallas, TX, and IPG Photonics of Oxford, MA.
James Langa, Hardinge's Senior Vice President of Machine Solutions, commented, "Manufacturers are constantly in search of new processes that are flexible, improve part quality and reduce overall cost. We believe that the combination of additive and subtractive technology coupled with precise 5-axis machine tool capability has strong potential for real-world industrial applications. Adopting, adapting and advancing cutting edge technologies for the benefit of our customers is vital to our growth strategy." Hardinge will be providing field service, design and applications engineering for the program.
Ronald Aman, project lead and Assistant Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering in RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering, noted, "Today there is no commercial software that can reliably generate the toolpaths that are necessary to control both additive and subtractive processes in 5-axis equipment. This presents a real challenge for mainstream adoption. We will be addressing this challenge by focusing on improving process planning and tool path generation, developing new materials, advancing overall process development and identifying new applications, as well as fundamental research aimed at radically changing the way we think of materials in a part."
The GX 250 is a multi-axis machining center that produces precision parts through traditional manufacturing processes. A high precision process, the machine mechanically cuts away material from a block using exacting motion control of rotating tools. RIT researchers will incorporate additive manufacturing, or 3-D printing, capabilities to the original machine to take advantage of the geometric freedom afforded by additive manufacturing while meeting aerospace tolerance requirements.
Integration of multiple processes, such as laser additive manufacturing and milling or turning, into a single platform is a new and rapidly growing field referred to as hybrid manufacturing. The hybrid manufacturing process has many advantages such as lower costs and improved accuracy, but also has unique capabilities such as dynamically changing a part's material composition as it is being built.
As part of the integration process, the researchers will be incorporating multiple powder feeders to blow metal or ceramic powder into the melt-pool, a type of 3-D printing function known as directed energy deposition. Multiple powder feeders will allow the use of more than one material for a product, including a combination of metals and ceramics or two or more metals.
"Imagine the power of smoothly transitioning materials, such as from copper to tool steel, or even ceramics in the future. This eliminates the abrupt material composition change that is nearly always the failure point for materials that have vastly different mechanical or thermal characteristics," said Professor Aman, who has expertise in the development of direct-metal additive manufacturing processes. He also has background in researching and developing the hybrid additive and subtractive metal manufacturing processes of single- and multi-materials systems. "There are not, to my knowledge, any other processes that will have the capabilities of this system," he added.
Professor Aman and Langa jointly concluded, "The partnership between RIT and Hardinge is a critical step to advance the hybrid ideas out of the laboratory and make it possible for companies to apply this new technology in production processes."
The Bridgeport GX 250, which was installed in the Brinkman Machine Tools and Manufacturing Lab located in RIT's Kate Gleason College of Engineering, will be part of the lab's extensive series of high-precision machining tools and equipment. It will also be used to support research in the AMPrint Center for Advanced Technology, a new university-corporate partnership focusing on expanding additive manufacturing and multi-functional printing capabilities, considered key economic drivers in New York State.
For more information contact:
Hardinge Inc.
P.O. Box 1507
Elmira, NY 14902-1507
800-843-8801
info@hardinge.com
www.hardinge.com
Rochester Institute of Technology
One Lomb Memorial Drive
Rochester, NY 14623-5603
585-475-2411
www.rit.edu