Maximising 5-axis potential

Aircraft braking system and carbon brake specialist Messier-Bugatti has switched to Delcam's PowerMill CAM system to support its move into 5-axis machining.



Previously, the Safran Group company had been producing components on 4-axis equipment but with a move to continuous 5-axis machines, the company felt that it needed a more efficient CAM system to make the most of its new capabilities. Messier-Bugatti has a global workforce of 1,500 employees based mainly in France, the US and Singapore. Over the years, the company has equipped more than 3,500 commercial aircraft. It has been an Airbus partner for more than 20 years and was recently selected to design, develop and manufacture wheels and carbon brakes for the new A350 XWB long haul commercial airliner. It is also an OEM supplier to Boeing, Bombardier and Dassault Aviation. Its Molsheim works in eastern France, where the PowerMill seats have been installed since 2007, is the company's historical birthplace, and now houses the production plant for wheels and brakes, hydraulic systems and equipment, as well as a division for handling carbon disc refurbishment for customers worldwide. To prepare for the shift to 5-axis, production manager Patrick Fonferrier and his team ran trials with PowerMill on landing gear components and hydraulic manifolds, quickly coming to the conclusion that the Delcam software would be the best product for the job. The most important factors in the decision were the flexibility offered by PowerMill, together with the high efficiency of the resulting programs. Another benefit is that while most of its components are machined form aluminium, titanium is a key material in Messier-Bugatti's product offering. The greater demands of this material require correspondingly high quality toolpath strategies, an area in which PowerMill performs strongly. Manufacturing process engineer Stéphane Schneider, describes how the Delcam software has become a major asset for the company: “We find it easy to import Catia parts into PowerMill, thanks to Delcam's Exchange translation software. Then we create the programs within PowerMill. Finally, we check the toolpaths in Vericut. If needed, we can modify any toolpath section quickly before machining parts.” Of the many advantages that PowerMill brings to machining, Messier-Bugatti claims that ‘the control over the different high speed machining strategies, the smoothness of the toolpaths and the significant reduction in the vibration of the parts during machining' is also a key part of the software's appeal. This of course, as well as helping to maintain accuracy, also serves to protect the tooling and the machines. “Thanks to PowerMill, the Messier-Bugatti team saves programming time and avoids programming errors by reducing the number of manual operations,” adds Schneider. “The Delcam support is very quick to respond, no matter what request we have. In fact, we have a very good relationship with the whole Delcam team.” Delcam
www.delcam.com
 

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