Product category:
Large milling and boring machines (over 2000mm in X)
News Release from: Leader CNC | Subject: Toshiba CNC heavy machine tools
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 13 July 2007
Wind turbines demand larger CNC machine
tools
Concern over global warming and declining fossil fuels resources have caused a growth in wind turbine generator manufacture - and more demand for larger machine tools.
Japanese machine tool builder, Toshiba, reports that its machines are already producing components for wind turbines in Europe These include its BMC twin-pallet and multi-pallet machining centres, the TMD large vertical mill-turn centres, the BTF and BP heavy duty horizontal boring machines and the TSS range of moving table vertical lathes
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 18 Jul 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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CNC machine tools being sold to the wind turbine industry are able to handle 20 tonne loads at 18m/min to a linear accuracy of +/-0.016mm over the full working envelope of 2.8m diameter swing by 2.3m high.
Positioning repeatability is +/-0.007mm.
Machines that can do this are BTD range of horizontal boring machines, which have a 110/130mm main spindle and the BF/BSF range of 130/180mm spindle machines.
Further reading
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To remain competitive a UK engineering company employs high technology machine tools and its most recently acquired machining centre has realised a productivity gain of almost 25%.
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A 5 axis horizontal machining centre, with a newly designed pallet exchange system and trunnion arrangement has linear/rotary scales that guarantee high accuracy and high metal removal.
Also included is the recently introduced BTF boring machine.
Vertical borers and turn/mill centres currently used on wind turbines range from a 2m diameter fixed table machine (TMD) up to a 3m diameter moving table vertical lathe, which can swing components up to 5.5m diameter.
Smaller machines from 1m diameter tables (TMF range) are also available from Toshiba.
There is also the heavy duty TD range going up to 8m diameter in standard specification.
This wide variation of machines with large working envelopes and exceptional productivity, capability and accuracy are delivering success to manufacturers of renewable energy products throughout Europe, said Toshiba.
For example, in the UK, UK agent for Toshiba, Leader CNC, is installing another Toshiba 1.5m diamter vertical borer at a plant.
It is the third Toshiba machine installed at that site in the last two years and the customer plans more installations for 2007.
Leader CNC has further orders for three more vertical boring machines at different sites in the UK.
It is becoming harder to find capacity for large part machining in the UK, as the low-cost high-volume components are often cheaper to source elsewhere.
On the other hand, there is demand for the machining of harder metals and larger complex parts.
As a result of the increasing trend to keep quality and traceability at home, many companies are finding deliveries of large machine tools getting longer and need to plan ahead well ahead.
Leader CNC prides itself on being an engineering company based on skills (also declining fast in the UK) and offers not only quality machine tools through Toshiba, Kitamura, Monforts and DMC, but will assist on evaluation, applications, project management and full after-sales support. Request a free brochure from Leader CNC ...
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