A high technology project to develop the deep hole drilling process whereby the path of the drilling tool point can be effectively steered or bowed to avoid other internal features of a component and through in-process monitoring and correction, create straighter and more concentric round holes over greater depth-to-diameter ratios, is being developed by Mollart Engineering with government grant funding.
“Mollart is pursuing a totally new concept to extend the potential for deep hole drilling that is of particular interest to industry sectors such as the nuclear, oil and gas, fluid power and aerospace,” explained sales director, Ian Petitt.
“The process will not only be of help in existing deep hole drilling applications, but more importantly, create new areas of freedom giving opportunities for next generation component design and operational functions in the most challenging sectors of industry.”
The two year Mollart Acubore R&D project, to be carried out at its Chessington facility in Surrey and in conjunction with a leading engineering university, is grant funded up to £250,000 by the Technology Strategy Board's Smart scheme. The scheme supports R&D projects in strategically important areas of science, engineering and technology, from which successful new products, processes and services could emerge. The Mollart project is viewed by the Technology Strategy Board as a prime example of collaboration between industry and university to meet specific future demands of important sectors of UK industry.
Added Mr Petitt: “This is a clean sheet of paper development in order to achieve the objectives to improve an already highly specialised process. The project involves developing a new concept using multi-axis CNC technology on a special purpose machine, which also includes software, tooling and the application of the process.”
As a result, the Mollart Acubore process will enable the projected path of the deep hole drill to be steered, targeted and corrected in on centre line, off centre and angular approach drilling. For holes between 6mm and 50 mm diameter the gun drilling process will be used, meanwhile heavier duty BTA drilling will be used by Mollart for holes up to 65mm diameter.
In both applications blind holes up to 3,500mm deep and through bores up to 7,000mm in depth will be able to be drilled from solid.
Mollart
www.mollart.com
