From its UK headquarters at the Advanced Manufacturing Park near Sheffield,
Ricky Payling, Dormer's European key account manager for aerospace and composites, has spearheaded the company's growing reputation in this field.
“The research technology centre housed at our UK headquarters has enabled Dormer to gain a unique insight into the properties and machining characteristics of composite materials, which can differ greatly from application to application,” said Payling. “Consequently, our tooling solutions can be tailored to each individual application. This is where our substantial knowledge and experience of composites really counts.”
One of the more common problems faced by his team is the machining of ‘stack' materials – when two different materials, such as aluminium and carbon fibre, are machined together. The key here is in finding a one-shot drilling solution that provides a clean hole without causing damage to the component or necessitating additional machining processes.
One such challenge was addressed by Dormer when it was asked for advice on a drilling application involving a wing skin assembly. Here, the customer needed to drill a stack material comprising of 10mm thick aluminium and 4mm thick carbon fibre.
“Ordinarily, the customer would have to cut a small diameter hole first, gradually opening this out to the finished size,” added Payling. “This not only takes time but also involves the use of several different tools. However, with our R790 carbide composite drill we were able to machine through-holes with no delamination or splintering on the carbon fibre and no exit burr on the aluminium.”
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