Waterjet powered precision: Radius Aerospace's new machine from WJS enhances production

At the end of last year, Elizabeth Robison, project manager at Arkansas USA-based Radius Aerospace made the long trip to Ronneby, Sweden with one objective in mind – to supervise the Factory Acceptance Test (FAT) on the company’s recently purchased NC5 4030 5-axis waterjet cutting machine from Water Jet Sweden (WJS).

“All our machine orders are based on specific customer requirements and testing before delivery is key to secure customer satisfaction,” explains Christian Svensson, US sales manager at Water Jet Sweden.

Radius Aerospace fabricates and manufactures a broad portfolio of aircraft and aerospace structures, components, sub-assemblies and systems. The company focuses on core services like forming, welding, bonding, machining, processing and assembly and has production facilities in both the US and the UK (Sheffield and Shrewsbury). 

The company has used waterjet cutting technology at its Hot Springs facility for many years and is well-versed and experienced in the process. Radius investigated new application areas for waterjet cutting and contacted Water Jet Sweden during 2022. A dialogue started on how to optimise a machine design to best support its ideas based on the FiveX – an innovative 3D waterjet cutting system from WJS. 

“Since both parties have a complementary area of expertise, the specification of a machine like this is always a joint effort,” Mr Svensson adds.

When it comes to FiveX machines, parameters such as size, features and fixtures are bespoke and designed to suits a customer’s specific application. This was the case with Radius Aerospace. Following extensive discussions between the two companies, the order was placed and in December last year, the new machine was ready for delivery. Elizabeth Robison then ventured to Sweden for the much-anticipated Factory Acceptance Test.

“It is key for us to meet customers’ expectations in every aspect,” Christian Svensson affirms. “We make sure there are no problems, queries or concerns when the machine leaves our production hall. Securing machine performance before delivery is standard procedure for us.”

The model delivered to Radius is the NC5 4030. It has a working range of 4.8m by 3m in the X-and Y-axes respectively and 1,500mm in Z. The project was delivered with a fully automatic bulk abrasive feed system, ‘WJS Online’ giving uninterrupted cutting and a run time of eight hours.

A ‘WJS Volume’ fully automatic de-sludging system was also provided which automatically recovers the spent abrasive from the cutting tank and filters it into a bag where it dries and can then be sent for recycling. A special cradle was designed and provided onto which the customer places his own bespoke workpiece fixtures.

Water Jet Sweden develops, manufactures and markets advanced solutions for waterjet cutting and provides a quality aftermarket offer with service and parts. Since 1993 the business has strived to be the ‘go to’ waterjet specialist globally. Currently it has customers in more than 40 countries around the world.

“We have become the leading provider of 5-axis waterjet systems globally,” Mr Svensson says. “The US market is recognising the advantages of having the processing accuracy previously only afforded on traditional 5-axis milling machines and gantry mills. We know have a direct presence to serve the US market with the majority of the business coming from within the aerospace, defence and nuclear industries.”

Many of the structures processed with 5-axis technology are from metal fabrications, castings, forgings and moulded composites. One of the main challenges has been to process features on these relatively inaccurate structures in an accurate location relative to a critical datum.

Water Jet Sweden has developed innovative technologies to address this conundrum – including close integration with Renishaw probing technologies. Points can be taken in discrete areas and local datums established, so, irrespective of any inaccuracies in the non-critical areas of a structure, critical features such as outlets and mounting points can be processed with positional accuracies better than 0.05mm.

Abrasive Water Jet (AWJ) cutting is a ‘cold’ process so is favoured by engineers when the structure benefits from not suffering a heat affected zone are required. AWJ also has a relatively low force transmitted to the workpiece when compared to traditional machining – so very simple fixtures and workholding methods can be employed and the workpiece does not suffer from distortion.

It’s no surprise then that UK-based global leaders in aerospace and defence such as Rolls-Royce, DSTL, Sellafield and their supplier base have chosen Water Jet Sweden as their partner in waterjet technology.

“The UK office was established in 2004 and we’ve been serving a loyal customer base ever since,” states WJS UK’s general manager and sales director Gavin Bell. “We’ve grown into the largest dedicated waterjet service organisation in the UK; we carry a comprehensive stock of spare parts and consumables on next day delivery and offer a full range of services including preventative maintenance schedules, breakdown interventions, customer training and machine moves.”

WJS UK
www.waterjetsweden.co.uk

Radius Aerospace
https://radiusaerospace.com