A. S. Thomas, Inc. is proud to
present its NUFORM CAD/CAM solutions along with live machining of
a turbine blade on its newly
purchased 5-axis machining center.
Manufacturing
A. S. Thomas, Inc.'s recently
purchased BD-605 high performance 5-axis machining center was on display showing live machining of a steam turbine
bucket from 410 stainless steel bar stock to finish in half the normal cycle
time.
The steam turbine bucket machined
has an active blade length of 17.5 inches with a bulb build-up and a blend to a
cylindrical nested root form. The
average chord length of the blade is 4.5 inches.
The raw stock is 4" x
2.5" x 24". The blade,
build-up, root blend, dovetail platform, and nested root form were machined to
an average surface finish of 32 micro-inches.
A. S. Thomas, Inc. has developed
this and numerous other production machining processes which have provided
dramatic reduction in machining cycle while improving part quality and
consistency.
With the addition of the BD605
5-axis machining center, A. S. Thomas, Inc. now offers its customers these
additional services:
Turn-key process development; a completely debugged and optimized
machining process can be provided allowing the customer to efficiently produce
parts on day one.
Prototype machining; via close interface with your engineering
staff one or more prototypes can be rapidly produced with an eye toward
production efficiencies.
NUFORM CAD/CAM
and JIT
The NUFORM CAD/CAM System as well
as various Expert systems where demonstrated. The Expert Systems demonstrated
included Blade Milling Expert Systems and other Knowledge Based CAE/CAD/CAM
Systems designed to solve numerous manufacturing problems.
A.S. Thomas, Inc.
has provided a large variety of
turn-key manufacturing
solutions across a
wide spectrum of products,
including: medical instruments,
surgical saw blades, turbine
blades,
thread rolling dies, feedscrews,
tooling hobs, etc.
Above: NUFORM solid verification of
blade machining.
Below: Sample
screws produced via NUFORM Expert system.
