Airbus

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Airbus

Airbus, Seco Tools with Seco-Jabro tools and CemeCon

Lift off easier

Aircraft manufacture and light weight construction are commonly mentioned together: and rightly so because without advanced designs and materials modern jets could no lon-ger fly their passengers economically anymore. So that the high-tech materials used can also be processed with cost efficiency in mind, special tools are required – customised to the area of application and with a service life which is as long as possible.

For a total of two years, the tool manuf-acturer Seco Tools which manufactures the Seco-Jabro carbide milling cutters, has worked on a programme to increase stability during the manufacture of mono-lithic aluminium components used in the aircraft industry.
Such aluminium parts are used in the cockpit and in the transitional area between body and wings. In order to increase process stability as well as in-crease service life and thus productivity, the company closely cooperated with the manufacturing department of Airbus Méaulte.

Precise measurements on tools and materials

The jointly developed tools were used in the production unit of Airbus Méaulte, and microchips in the tool holder collected data as to tool service life during milling operations. There-after the condition of the tools was analysed in the test centre at Lottum (The Netherlands) by measuring the forces occurring during milling opera-tions using the original Airbus material. Also the machined material was inves-tigated so as to obtain information on its structure after a defined period of tool usage.

After the first tests it was apparent that the aluminium sticking effect was the reason for the higher forces during the milling process. These in-fluence the structure of the material to be machined and thus also service life in a negative way. In close coope-ration between Airbus and Seco Tools the future requirements were defined. Doubling of tool service life so as to increase productivity, but also to attain a stable manufacturing process at the Méaulte factory.

Optimised coating for best results

CemeCon developed for the Seco-Jabro carbide products of Seco Tools the cus-tomised Mega-T coating, a solution op-timised in view of the stringent require-ments at Airbus. Also the pre-treatment of the tools was scrutinised by the engi-neers and they developed a special pro-cess significantly reducing the aluminium sticking effect. Also handling of the tools within the Airbus factory was improved so as to attain the utmost precision during the manufacturing process.

“The combination of all these factors allo-wed us finally to attain the challenging target and brought about the decisive progress in productivity for Airbus” says Ing. Marcel Aarts, Head of the Department of Research and De-velopment at Lottum, where the Seco-Jabro carbide tools are being manufactured.

Ing. Marcel Aarts: “We have scrutinised the entire process from substrate and geometry through grinding and pre-treatment up to coating.

Here are all parameters had to be matched perfectly with respect to each other. Only through the excellent co-opera-tion of all involved at CemeCon and Seco Tools were we able to reach the challenging target we had set ourselves so as to opti-mise production at Airbus to the satisfaction of all.”