Manufacturing Technology

Composites for car part manufacturing

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) mandated in 2012 that the national automobile fleet should average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025 in order to reduce reliance on fossil fuel and minimize emissions, many other nations have also implemented similar new standards. To meet these new standards the automotive industry has had to find new ways to make lighter cars without sacrificing their strength and structural integrity. Here Jari Sopanen, Regional Manager at leading composites manufacturer Exel composites explains why one of the best replacements for steel is thermoset components. Thermoset composites are formed using glass, carbon, or aramid fibres, which are then combined with resins such as polyesters, vinyl esters, epoxies, or phenolic resins. These composites are used in various industries but are particularly prominent in the manufacturing of aircraft and spacecraft parts. Thanks to research and development in the aerospace sector, composites are also being used across other forms of transportation due to the high demand for lightweight vehicles and components. This trend, called light-weighting, seeks to use innovative materials to reduce the weight of products. As a result, composite materials are being increasingly used in production, especially for automotive parts and components. According to the American Composites Manufacturers Associations, fiberglass is one of the key reinforcing materials used in the US thermoset composites industry. Thanks to its durable properties, it is a good replacement for steel in vehicle structural components, including drive shafts, bumpers and roof beams Reducing component weight is crucial for raising the efficiency of automotive systems. For example, carbon fibre has comparable properties to steel, but is only one-fifth the weight. Regardless of the mode of transport, it is easy to see the benefits that shaving this amount of weight from a vehicle will achieve. Additionally, when directly compared to steel, composite materials can […]

Update of Hypertherm’s Robotmaster robot programming software available

Hypertherm has released Robotmaster Version 7.1, a major update to the completely redesigned and advanced architecture of its Version 7 software released last year. In total, this new robotic programming software contains more than 40 new features, 500 improvements, and dozens of bug fixes. Many of the changes, driven by customer feedback, are designed to continuously improve the software’s CAD/CAM technology and automate programming, allowing customers to enjoy the best error-free robotic path in just one click. Added features and improvements include: Ability to automatically recognise weld joints embedded in CAD models which simplifies and speeds up programming Ability to transform operations to reduce multiple manual selections Ability to modify operation geometry (a section of the path or the entire path) so the user can match the CAD model to the actual part when a mismatch exists Robotmaster can handle both simple and complex robotic tasks, from straightforward plasma cutting jobs, to deburring and additive manufacturing applications. Today, Robotmaster software is used on robots that drill airplane fuselages, polish automotive dies, cut material, support additive manufacturing, and add value to a multitude of processes at family-owned job shops around the world. “Our goal was to revolutionise the way robots are programmed by creating software that is so intuitive anyone can use it,” explained Garen Cakmak, leader of Hypertherm’s Robotic Software team. “It enables customers to enjoy error-free task-based programming that takes collisions, singularities, joint collisions, and other robotic errors into account before running the program live on a robot. “This in turn makes it possible to program new jobs without interrupting the robot, minimising downtime and instantly increasing productivity and profitability.”

Siemens partners with TIES to develop technologies for electric vehicle batteries

Siemens Digital Industries Software has partnered with Tianmu Lake Institute of Advanced Energy Storage Technologies (TIES), a major Chinese energy storage research and development centre, to build an Advanced Battery Technology Innovation Centre. The Innovation Centre, to be located at the 500 million-yuan, 51,000 square meter TIES facility in Liyang, China, will be dedicated to transforming and upgrading the advanced battery industry, including nurturing advanced battery technology research and development, and the development and introduction of high-end talents in this growing area. Meanwhile, the Innovation Centre will also provide manufacturing enterprises, both domestic and abroad, with high-quality professional digital transformation services, including digital construction and digital manufacturing construction consulting services for medium- and large-sized enterprises, implementation of complete solutions for digital enterprises, as well as the development of digital capabilities for and shared lab leases for small and micro businesses. In doing so, this centre can enable advanced research in battery technology, drive collaboration throughout the supply chain, and allow partners to develop the leading-edge battery technologies required for enhanced range with future electric vehicles. “As the first digital innovation center in battery field we aim to provide comprehensive digital solutions for the innovation chain and production chain, from first principle calculation to digital twin factory, from materials to systems,” said Professor Hong Li, Chief Executive Officer, at TIES. “This target is difficult to be realised but certainly worthy for long-term effort. Based on digital solutions, we believe we can understand the complex batteries and their processing precisely and produce the new batteries with unprecedented quality and reliability.” “China is fast emerging as a peer to those countries long known as leaders in battery innovation, in part due to much concerted government and private investment, of which this Siemens-TIES partnership is a prime example,” said Pei Huang (pictured), CEO and […]

Halton Group expanding factory operations in China

Halton has opened a new production unit of about 7,500 sq. meters close to their existing factory, with a floor area of 3,000 sq. meters, in the Lingang area, in Shanghai. The manufacture of Halton’s professional kitchen solutions such as kitchen hoods, ventilated ceilings and pollution control systems will transfer from the existing factory to the new one. The former will focus on the manufacture of solutions provided by Halton’s other business units for the Chinese and Asian markets, such as Halton Marine’s fire dampers and demisters and Halton Health’s laboratory solutions. With the new factory, Halton aims at doubling its sales in China by 2025. Halton has been expanding its operations steadily in China since 2005 when it opened its first manufacturing operation in the country. The current factory was opened in 2010 and it hosts one of Halton’s seven R&D centres, Halton Innovation Hubs. \The Hub is planned to be moved to the new factory premises during 2020. “The Chinese and Asian markets are huge and there is strong demand for pollution control systems aimed at professional kitchens, for instance, as well as for high-quality indoor environment solutions. Besides restaurant market, we see interesting opportunities in the corporate catering sector,” says Georges Gaspar, Director of Halton Foodservice. The new factory facility already hosts a new show room demonstrating Halton’s commercial kitchen solutions such as the mobile cooking station, Halton MobiChef, pollution control system, Halton PolluStop, and the demand-based ventilation control system, Halton M.A.R.V.E.L, as well as the ventilated ceiling and different hood technologies, such as the Halton Capture Jet. ”It is important to us that we can demonstrate our technologies and to develop them close to our customers, and also together with them. It is important to our customers that we can offer them state-of-the-art solutions that also […]

Cobot companies in industrial applications

There are well over 50 manufacturers of collaborative robots (cobots) worldwide, but only a handful of these companies have so far deployed cobots on any meaningful level of scale. Tens of thousands of cobots have been sold as of 2019 and earned US$500 million in annual revenue for world markets. The Industrial Collaborative Robots Competitive Assessment analysed and ranked 12 collaborative robot vendors in the industry – ABB, Aubo Robotics, Automata, Doosan Robotics, FANUC, Franka Emika, Kuka AG, Precise Automation, Productive Robotics, Techman Robot, Universal Robots, and Yaskawa Motoman. For this competitive assessment, innovation criteria included payload, software, ergonomics and human-machine interaction, experimentation and safety; implementation criteria focused on units and revenue, cost and ROI, partnerships, value-added services, and the number of employees. Market leaders in cobots generally have well-developed cobot rosters, in many cases backed up by an ecosystem platform that integrates applications, accessories, and end-of-arm-tooling (EOAT) solutions in with the base hardware. With 37,000 cobots sold so far, UR leads, followed by Taiwanese provider Techman with 10,000, and Korea-based Doosan with over 2,000. Precise Automation, which uses an advanced direct drive solution to develop faster collaborative robots, was cited as the most innovative of the 12 providers, just edging out Universal Robots, who claimed the overall top spot due to their significant lead in implementation. There are several companies that are too young to be challenging the dominant parties in the cobot market but are developing new and disruptive technologies that will allow them rise to prominence in the years to come. Productive Robotics is a case-in-point. It has an arm with inbuilt vision, 7 axes for superior flexibility, long reach, and a very affordable price point, but has yet to deploy at scale. Automata, a British company develops a ‘desk-top’ cobot costing less than US$7,000, is significantly […]

Xcelerator speeds digital future of industry

Xcelerator is an integrated portfolio of software, services and application development platform that can be personalised and adapted to fit customer and industry-specific needs to help companies of all sizes become digital enterprises. Xcelerator combines the full portfolio of Siemens’ software for design, engineering and manufacturing with an expanded Mendix low-code, multiexperience application development platform. The Mendix platform now includes cloud and app services for digital engineering and Internet of Things (IoT) powered by MindSphere the cloud-based, open IoT operating system from Siemens, in addition to Mendix’s market-leading unified low-code and no-code development environments. Unique to Xcelerator, this platform drives digital transformation by enabling anyone in the ecosystem, including citizen developers and engineers to easily build, integrate and extend their existing data and systems.

Powerful tube bending machines for Southeast Asia’s future

Powerful tube bending machines for Southeast Asia’s future The Southeast Asian economy is booming: countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam are increasingly becoming production centres for companies from across the world. Investments and spending on infrastructure are on the rise in the region. Against this backdrop, Schwarze-Robitec will be at the Tube Southeast Asia trade fair in Bangkok from September 18th to 20th. This is the first time that the German tube bending specialist will showcase its powerful tube bending machines at the Thai event, which is an offshoot of the Tube trade fair in Düsseldorf. Under the “Made in Germany” umbrella, the Cologne-based company will be located in the “German Pavilion”, the official joint exhibition stand of German companies that is being supported by the Foreign Trade Fair Participation Programme of Germany. The “Made in Germany” seal stands for the quality and tradition of German engineering, both of which Schwarze-Robitec embodies. Schwarze-Robitec’s powerful tube bending machines are used in many different fields. In the automotive industry, for example, the High Performance machines enable extremely high production speeds. This is largely thanks to their intelligent NxG control system, which enables almost all CNC axes to be operated simultaneously during the bending process. This helps reduce production times by up to 40 percent depending on the tube geometry. Schwarze-Robitec’s Heavy Duty machines, meanwhile, offer highly precise bending results even for very small radii and challenging tube and pipe geometries, which is a demand of the shipbuilding industry. The booster bending machines are able to bend – with or without a mandrel – even high-strength materials with minimal wall thinning and optimal ovality. This is a particular requirement of the boiler and power plant industry, which Schwarze-Robitec is able to fulfil with its Boiler & Power series. High Performance for the […]

China re launches Earthquake Catastrophe Model v2.0′

One hundred experts from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Emergency Management Department, seismological science research institutes and the insurance industry convened for the summit and unveiling of ‘China Earthquake Catastrophe Model v2.0’. China Reinsurance Group (China Re) launched the ‘China Earthquake Catastrophe Model v2.0’, the country’s first proprietary commercial earthquake catastrophe model certified by the Seismological Society of China, at the 3rd China Re Catastrophe Risk and Insurance Summit held here on Thursday, August 22. This was a milestone that will fundamentally change China’s long dependence on foreign earthquake catastrophe models, and systematically improve the capacity of China’s earthquake catastrophe risk quantitative management. Nearly one hundred experts from the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Emergency Management Department, seismological science research institutes and the insurance industry had convened for the summit, and to witness the unveiling of ‘China Earthquake Catastrophe Model v2.0’. China Re has held the Catastrophe Risk and Insurance Summit for three consecutive years, since establishing the China Reinsurance Catastrophe Research Center in 2017. ‘China Earthquake Catastrophe Model v2.0’ is a concerted milestone achievement by the government, academia and enterprise. To develop the model, China Re initiated the China Re Catastrophe Risk Management Company, the country’s first fin-tech corporation for catastrophe risk control, and brought in a professional model development team with overseas working experience. China Re integrated its scientific research and data resources with the support of professional research institutes including the Institute of Geophysics, and Institute of Engineering Mechanics of the China Earthquake Administration. China Re applied for the State Key Research Project, ‘Earthquake Insurance Loss Assessment Model and Applications’, and received additional funds from the Ministry of Science and Technology. The research grants ensured that the model was completed within two years. Currently, the model has been recognized by the Seismological […]

NEC to deploy supercomputer for German Aerospace Center (DLR)

NEC Corporation has announced that Deutsches Zentrum fur Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR) – the German Aerospace Center – has awarded NEC with the delivery and installation of a new High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster solution, which constitutes one of the largest recent HPC tenders in Europe. NEC will deliver and deploy a direct-liquid cooled HPC solution comprising 2,300 Gigabyte compute nodes based on the AMD EPYC 7601 processor, totaling up to 147,200 cores within a budget of more than 20 million Euros. The new DLR cluster will be hosted and administrated by the Center for Information Services and High Performance Computing (ZIH) at the new Datacenter of the Technische Universitat Dresden (TU Dresden), according to the strategic scientific co-operation between NEC and DLR. The very challenging frame conditions for power and energy efficiency of DLR and ZIH requires most of the total solution to be direct-liquid cooled (DLC), at a warm water inlet temperature of 35degC. NEC employs a unique cooling solution with CPUs cooled directly and all other components employing secondary water cooling in closed racks. rmal insulation of the racks minimises inefficient air cooling in the computer room. The complete management of the solution includes such functions as a software environment for controlling the power consumption at runtime. NEC partnered with CoolIT Systems and Gigabyte to design Passive Coldplate Loops for servers equipped with AMD EPYC CPUs. The entire system was developed to work with high coolant temperatures to provide additional opportunities for heat re-use. Some non-DLC components are cooled by a thermally insulated liquid side-cooler solution supplied by Schafer IT. The complete solution will include 116 large-memory nodes with a total of 58 Terabyte of main memory, 20 visualsation nodes with two NVIDIA P5000 GPUs for remote visualization with NICE DCV, and a Lustre-based parallel HPC storage […]

Electric car lithium battery pack and power connections. Blue toned.

Mazda drives creativity using generative engineering tools

Mazda Motor Corporation has adopted the Capital electrical design software suite from Mentor, a Siemens business, to help maximise innovation in the design of next-generation automotive electrical systems. Recognised worldwide for its successful launch of innumerable innovative technologies, Mazda uses Capital for model-based generative design for the electrical and electronic systems of the entire vehicle platform. The Capital automated generative design flow helps Mazda automotive design teams manage design complexity and changes across the entire vehicle platform, minimising errors and reducing costs. The development of safe and efficient electrical designs has become a critical task as the automotive industry moves towards large scale system developments such as electrified powertrains and autonomous driving. These designs are often based on entirely new architectures and have become so complex that advanced software tools are needed to enable development efforts. Capital tools deliver real time feedback against target metrics such as cost, weight, and network bandwidth consumption. This allows engineers to explore alternative design approaches, which is extremely important for large scale system developments represented by electric and autonomous vehicles. Capital software also provides Mazda with extensive simulation and verification functionalities. At Mazda, from system design, harness design and verification down to manufacturing and service documentation, outputs of each process have been generated in its natural language, requiring designers to translate between processes and fill in the missing pieces using their talents and skills. “In order to remove ambiguity while maintaining the diversity of expressions that are characteristics of these natural languages, we applied formal methods to eliminate the loss in information transfer and set a goal to build a development environment that is consistent and connected all the way through the manufacturing phase,” said Kazuichi Fujisaka, Technical Leader, Mazda Motor Corporation. “Furthermore, we also aim to shift to a development methodology that allows […]

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