Typhoon Blows Osai's Praises

Many superlatives have been applied to the Eurofighter Typhoon, the world's most advanced multi-role combat aircraft. Certainly, 'unsurpassed accuracy' is another that reflects the ICY Machining Development project, established to drill aircraft panels and substructures to interchangeable standards without the use of hard tooling.

This has been achieved at British Aerospace Military Aircraft and Aerostructures, near Preston, through the facility of two huge DST interchangeable structure drilling machines that will take virtually any component without the need for purpose-built jigs or templates. This, in part, is thanks to the Osai 10/Series advanced CNC used for the 6-axis control of these £ multi-million machines.

Osai 10/Series CNC controllers with the Osai WinLink integrated PC workstation are the standard OEM selection on these new machines, which have been jointly developed by DS Technologies and British Aerospace, with Osai being heavily involved in the development of the software. Three machines have been produced to date, with all three being at British Aerospace.

"The machine is achieving a positional accuracy of ± 36 microns within the overall working envelope of 144 cu metres!" says BAe AMT Manager, Jon Evans.

All removable panels are completely interchangeable, partly through the engineering accuracy of the beds and the machine tool itself. Then there's the really clever part, which is in the software. Because the fixture is not accurately defined, it is first probed so, that it is fixed in space. The 10/Series software uses this data to rotate the part-program in space about all three axes, thus eliminating all jig errors, without the need to reprogram the part. The software also incorporates a volumetric correction system and corrects wear on the machine as a whole.

Capable of managing up to 24 processes and 32 axes simultaneously, the 10/Series communicates with the British Aerospace network via an Ethernet connection, pulling in CAD programs, written in the AMT office, for each component as required.

Typically, components include the two halves of the Eurofighter cockpit and parts of the fuselage, including the belly panels and the engine-bay doors. Component materials include carbon fibre, titanium, carbon steel and various alloys.

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