Machine Technology

Many trends affect the metalworking industry, including customer demands for the best quality, lowest cost and shortest delivery time. Design concepts for modular machine tools can address these expectations through general-function modules that can be combined to meet job requirements while reducing costs and lead times.

While machine tool CNCs continue to evolve, one development expands that process beyond what a control typically represents. Mazak's Smooth Technology is a complete process-performance technology platform that spans the part production landscape from programming and setup to metal-removal operations to automation to data collection, monitoring and transfer.

The Machine Technology column looks at how inertia active control cuts cycle time.

Methods for minimizing chatter.

In a typical machine-tool-axis positioning system, the workpiece is mounted on a table that slides along flat, straight guide ways. The table may be supported on the guide ways by rolling elements or by a thin film of oil or grease. A screw controls the table position along the guide way.

The cutting zone in a machine tool is dangerous. Hot chips and large quantities of coolant are often safety threats, but a tool rotating at a high speed is an even greater one.

Capacitance sensors are noncontact sensors used in machine tools to measure the distance between a noncontact probe and a target sensor. Because the probe does not physically touch the target, capacitance sensors are beneficial in instances where the target surface is moving, such as a rotating spindle, or delicate, such as a silicon wafer.

The Machine Technology column in the December 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering discusses the essentials of tapered spindle connections.

The advantages of preloading ball nuts.

Scraping is one of the oldest and most historically significant metal-removal processes, notes Dr. Scott Smith in his Machine Technology column of the September 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine.

The Machine Technology column in the August 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering magazine reviews the use of the reversal technique in machine measurement.

Dr. Scott Smith of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte discusses the benefits of hydrostatic bearings in his Machine Technology column for the July 2014 issue of Cutting Tool Engineering.