The latest flexible manufacturing system (FMS) designed and created by Starrag is heading to China. A company active in the Chinese aviation industry annually machines 35,000 Inconel or titanium-forged turbine blades right through to completion via a fully automated process. The operator simply inserts the unmachined parts into the magazine and then removes the ready-to-install blades at the other end.
Flexible manufacturing systems are becoming a global trend. The aviation and energy industries in particular capitalize on the qualitative and economic benefits offered by automated series production. Starrag is a premium supplier for these highly demanding systems and has been designing and supplying FMSs for manufacturing turbine parts and structural components for aircraft for over twenty years. Around 60 automated multi-machine systems have been created during this time, allowing the company to accumulate a wealth of technological experience.
Dr Markus Ess, Head of Development at the Starrag site in Rorschacherberg explains: "In addition to our core competences in the fields of machine tools, tools, fixtures and the CAM system, we have an extensive amount of expertise in turn-key projects. In the FMS, we are supplementing our machining technology with automation components and all other necessary components so that we can provide the customer with a complete, reliable production system."
The benchmarks set by the latest plant are higher than ever before. The FMS ordered by this Chinese aviation company must be able to process 35,000 turbine blades via automated processes each year. This total volume comprises four different blade types in sizes ranging from 80 mm to 200 mm. These blades are known as "variable guide vanes" and they are positioned in the vertical part of the turbine so that they can be adjusted to allow the flow or thrust to be modified as needed. As the actual batch sizes for the four types equal around 200 parts, the FMS must ensure a high level of precision and the corresponding throughput while also exhibiting a high degree of flexibility.
Unmachined parts go in, finished parts come out
Starrag FMS enables fully automated turbine blade production
A demanding production process
Blade production was previously carried out without major automation across various individual machines and turbine blades were still polished by hand as a final stage. This is why the customer had a clear idea of what they wanted from the new Starrag FMS and of the added advantages they wanted to benefit from: The process had to be streamlined through modern production technology, with maximum process reliability and a higher level of quality in the final product. Particular emphasis was placed on automating the system to prevent any errors arising from manual operation.
"To some extent, the FMS should be a black box system in which the operator only loads a magazine with unmachined parts at the start of the process and then removes the ready-to-install turbine blades at the end", explains Markus Ess. "Designing the overall process was a major challenge. Which sequence of operations is useful? How should handling be performed?"
For example, to prevent the operating company from having to shut down the entire plant when carrying out maintenance work, the development team led by Markus Ess arranged the system into two almost identical, redundant sections. Each section contains a setup area, a handling robot mounted on a 20-meter-long gantry, a washing system, a polishing robot, a coordinate measuring device and a labelling system. The main task of machining the product is completed by a total of seven Starrag LX 021 machining centres, four of which are assigned to one side while the other three are assigned to the other side.
Starrag FMS
