PT Engineers are leading CNC machinists with decades of experience in CNC machining. From household appliances through to renewable energy components, CNC machining services are used to manufacture many different parts. As a result, it is one of the most versatile manufacturing processes available and we’re proud to offer it to a wealth of industries all over the UK.
Related: CNC Machining Supplying Many Industries
What are the advantages of CNC machining?
In today’s fast-paced world of manufacturing, expectations are higher than ever when it comes to fast, efficient and accurate production. With this in mind, CNC machining is often favoured over manual machining. Some key advantages of CNC machining include:
- The same processes can be repeated time and time again to create uniform batches of components
- The rate of production is faster than manual machining
- Each component is almost guaranteed to match exact prototype specifications
- High levels of accuracy resulting in the ability to product complex shapes
- Less staff required leading to lower production costs
Related: CNC Machining Advantages | What are the Advantages?
CNC Machining for Renewable Energy Sector
As mentioned above, CNC machining is relied on by a wealth of sectors, including the renewable energy sector. Here at PT Engineers, our CNC machinists have supported several turbine companies such as Greenray Turbine Solutions Ltd to manufacture critical components that support huge renewable energy projects. One of these projects included the CNC machining of a rotor the shaft complete from a forging.
What does electrical runout mean?
When talking about rotor shafts and turbines, electrical runout is the term used to describe the displacement of a rotating shaft. It measures the shaft’s deviation from the uniform radius as the shaft’s circumference is traversed.
So what did we do?
Part of the process when manufacturing a rotor shaft is to carry out electrical runout checks on the probe track areas. We needed to ensure that the values fell into the allowable tolerance range in order for the shaft to be compliant for drawing up. When readings are out of the tolerance limits, remedial work must take place to bring the readings within tolerance. The key method to do this is by diamond burnishing the probe tracks and then re-taking the readings to hopefully record improvement. For this particular project, upon taking new readings they were still out of tolerance which meant we needed to find an alternative method to diamond burnishing to improve the readings.
Developing a New Process
We developed a new process to bring high values down and low values up when it came to surface texture areas which were out of tolerance. We discovered that some areas needed a better surface finish than others in order to balance out the readings; however this process had to be carried out manually and was therefore very labour intensive.
Despite it being time consuming, after numerous trials using various mediums, we successfully brought each probe track within tolerance.
Technical and Scientific Uncertainties
The main uncertainties we faced were when it came to deciding whether a high value should be polished to a better surface finish or whether it should be made to a rougher surface finish. We faced the same uncertainty when deciding how to improve a low value reading.
Alongside the above, we also needed to consider to what extent we needed to adjust the finishes to achieve readings within tolerance. And therefore what mediums should be used to create the desired results.
Overcoming Uncertainty
The process we took to finding solutions to the challenges above was through trial and error. By trialling and testing various mediums and surface finishes, we were quickly able to establish which surface finish affected the high and low values.
We also carried out trials using many different polishes and abrasives until we could establish which ones had the best and desired effects.
Experienced CNC machinists
The result of the above experiment meant that we learnt plenty of new techniques when it came to securing electrical runout checks ahead of rotating shaft manufacturing. As CNC machinists who work regularly with the energy sector, the experience and the learnings we took from it have proved invaluable.
If you’d like to find out more about our CNC machining company, head to our website or call 01788 543661 to speak to a member of our team.
If you have found this blog helpful, you may wish to read our previous blog: CNC Machining Services For Military Vehicles