The finishing touch!

AMApr18Features - rosler1
AMApr18Features - rosler1

Rösler’s aerospace projects manager, Tony Pugh reveals how the company’s surface finishing and preparation products are helping the aerospace sector find the best way to a better finish.

Rösler are market leaders in mass finishing and shot blasting/peening surface preparation, and as such our products and processes span all types of vibratory and mass finishing including high energy centrifugal, surf, drag, and isotropic super polishing. As such, we manufacture over 7,000 different types shapes and grades of media, all to ISO standards at our factories in Germany.

Peening and blasting systems are designed in both wet and dry format, with gantry or robot nozzle manipulation, with or without fully-automatic pick and place loading systems, and the same processes are available in more manual cabinet systems as well.

Tony Pugh, Rösler’s aerospace projects manager

Innovation and quality are bywords for us here, we really do seek to find a better way, and this is underwritten by our engineering expertise built up over 80 years in this industry. Every automatic system is bespoke designed to meet our customers exact needs, which means of course that we spend a great deal of time listening to our customers. Being experts in both shot blasting/peening and mass finishing often leads to novel solutions.

Flexibility in our approach and design is key to getting the most out of what is normally a high value investment, and the trend here is definitely to more automated processes. Customers expect, and we offer, much more than an off-the-shelf solution to which the customers specification/expectations must conform. After-sales support is also considered as essential by our customers, as our automatic systems very often replace a number of old more manual units, and account for a high percentage of a departments output. Installation, commissioning, training are all a given, as our supply is always fully turnkey. Each branch worldwide has specialist aerospace personnel who share their ideas and knowledge and one branch is designated for aerospace.

Welcoming the challenge

We have such a large range of machine platforms, and process types, to work from that we find applications for practically all components from the aero-engine, airframe and landing gear sector. We really do welcome challenges from our customers to develop new processes for different applications, as has been the case for in improving finishes on multi-span vanes, blisks, even developing an XXL drag finishing system for large helicopter gears.

Our surface finishing solutions are very diverse and can range from ensuring absolute process and outcome stability in very precise peening applications, by measuring and controlling all key process variables (KPVs), not just those specified in AMS 2432, to literally saving thousands of pounds of manual deburring and radiusing costs on airframe components with mass finishing techniques (before we shot peen them). A project we are currently working on is to design a fully-automatic system for lights out production to dry grit blast a large range of multi-span vanes (descale) in an MRO operation, prior to inspection and repair. This requires considerable expertise in fixture and gripper design, as well as robot modelling to ensure coverage can be achieved.

Our aerospace customers are well-informed of the specifications they must follow in terms of process control and production rates. Beyond that, I guess the answer is to be aware of the possibilities for automation and consider the benefits in quality and output from a better controlled process that we can offer.

Our latest success is a new design wet blast machine for a leading European aero-engine manufacturer, which has just entered production. This was a highly-collaborative development with the customer, whereby they wanted much tighter control of process KPVs, similar to those developed in our wet shot peening machines, to ensure a very specific and consistent surface finish and metal removal rate. Developing solutions for ergonomic load and unload have been just as important, and manufacturing engineers and operators alike are very pleased with the result.

Robotic automation of applying the process always gives benefits in accuracy and repeatability, but in terms of health and safety we have seen examples where two- or three-year paybacks on investment purely on labour/efficiency gains have been acceptable, as the associated elimination of RSI or hand/arm vibration risk to operators has been seen as the main driver.

Automate to innovate

Robotic automation is very important for our customers in terms of product productivity benefits, cost savings and quality improvements, but our automated systems are designed holistically, and the key to this is our bespoke PC supervisor control and reporting system. In terms of Industry 4.0, our machines can communicate with us and the customer to report usage and wear rates, ensuring spare parts are ordered in good time, and if necessary realigning service visits and intervals. Remote access by customers is also more commonly requested now to monitor production during lights out, unmanned operation

Continually investment in areas such as 3D modelling and training mean that we can very quickly develop machine and handling ideas with our customers to optimise footprint and ergonomics. More specifically we commit large sums to developing new technologies, such as Surf-Finishing. This was a good example of the symbiosis between our mass finishing and shot blasting divisions, whereby robotic loading and workpiece manipulation in a process more common in shot blasting was used to develop a unique mass finishing solution. Here, the workpiece is moved in a high energy stream of abrasive (or polishing) finishing media. Investment in X-ray diffraction equipment for our own laboratory has also enabled us to assess and develop our peening processes much more quickly.

What differentiates our company from the competition is the wide range of experience we have in very diverse applications and the ability to bring ideas from our different areas of expertise to solve new problems, or even to move an established process or machine onto the next level.

If a defined strategy is customer focus, then this is definitely at the top of the list, and our people, with open minds and can-do attitude is instrumental in this. Experience is part of the resource a company needs to have, as well as adequate investment and a solid financial base. Our willingness to use new technology and incorporate this into solutions is why and how we can offer more to our customers.

www.rosler.com

Company

Rosler UK

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