What direction is metal working taking?

PTW Innovation Tour on Future Production Trends will bring visitors at AMB 2012 right up to date

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09.02.2012 Stuttgart

The Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) at Darmstadt Technical University has resolved to inform visitors at AMB 2012 about the state of the art in metal working as compactly and efficiently as possible. A study conducted by the Institute has revealed that a visitor spends an average of one day at the exhibition. This will also be the case at AMB 2012, International Exhibition for Metal Working, which will be held in Stuttgart from 18 to 22 September 2012. The study also revealed that out of the eight or nine hours which visitors have planned for their stay at the exhibition, four hours will be taken up in previously arranged meetings. In the remaining four hours visitors will have time to obtain an in impression of the latest trends. With its innovative stand concept in Hall 5 at AMB 2012, PTW wants to comply with the narrow time window and the desire by visitors to obtain detailed information on the currently most important trends in production engineering. The stand concept will benefit in this respect from the Institute’s strategy as an application-based research organisation. The close connections with numerous innovation leaders in the industry will ensure that only those key topics with both high innovation potential and high practical relevance will first be presented in subject clusters.

Subject clusters make orientation easier

The "PTW Innovation Tour on Metal Working – Future Trends" will provide an extensive insight into key future-oriented topics. To make it easy for visitors to find their way around, every topic will be illustrated separately in a cluster from different angles by a total of 25 innovation leaders on an area of 540 square metres. Manufacturers of tools, machines and automation solutions, as well as service providers and users were therefore integrated in the exhibition concept. Regular guided tours for visitors will give interested parties a succinct introduction to the contents of the different innovation clusters. The framework of the Innovation Tour will be formed by the open stand concept which will allow visitors access from all sides. In the centre of the stand the "London bus" will invite visitors to hold discussions with experts, cultivate existing contacts and forge new contacts. PTW has identified the topics of CFK in mechanical engineering, energy efficiency, lean machining, complete machining and titanium machining as the most important trends at present.

The demand for a continuous increase in productivity and quality, as well as for energy and resource efficiency will be taken into account in the topic CfK in mechanical engineering . Since traditional lightweight construction methods have reached their limits, some pioneers are relying on the opportunities afforded by the switch to modern materials such as fibre plastic composites (FPC) to increase dynamism and machining precision. The contradiction between higher rigidity and lower masses can be eliminated in this case. The current application areas of FPC and the impacts of FPC on production engineering will be presented by the partners in this respect.

At the latest since the current discussions concerning the future energy supply, the topic of energy efficiency in industry has been on everyone’s lips. In addition to the political and social dimension, energy efficiency is also synonymous with a reduction in unit costs. In order to create transparency in the design of new machine tools and in the retrofit of existing systems regarding meaningful energy efficiency measures, simulation is becoming increasingly more important. In conjunction with leading manufacturers of energy-efficient technologies, a ready-to-use simulation solution for evaluating energy efficiency measures will be presented at AMB 2012. Operators will see here how they can select ideal system solutions based on the requirements in their own production environment.

The Lean Machining cluster will demonstrate how the enormous potential produced by lean material flow approaches coupled with high adaptivity can be exploited in future in a metal-cutting production workshop. It will be shown here how machine tools can be ideally matched to upstream and downstream processes. The exhibition will also focus on the topic of adaptivity, i.e. the requirements relating to continually changing metal cutting tasks over the economic service life. The results of the SimLog Research Project will be presented in this respect. This Project formulated solutions which cope with this challenge by means of universal material flow interfaces on the machine tool.

The Complete Machining cluster will be devoted to the key indicators of flexibility, high productivity and customers‘ requirements for adapted quality. At present, manufacturers’ innovation approaches are geared, in particular, towards understanding the ambivalence between flexible adaptivity and highly productive rigid machine systems. During the Innovation Tour, visitors will be guided through an integrated process solution whose focal point is an innovative machine concept which is highly productive and also features a flexible solution.

Titanium machining is a production process which is extremely important, above all, in the aerospace industry. The high growth potential in the titanium machining industry is contrasted by a hitherto relatively low productivity rate - and thus high costs. Significant increases in productivity can only be attained by new, fully optimised process technologies. In addition to technological parameters, the machining centre, the tools with their coatings, the machining strategy, the tool- and workpiece holding fixtures and the lubricant strategy must be intermeshed along with other factors. The industrial partners in this topic area will present in this respect innovative solutions on a complex 5-axis titanium component.

Registrations for the "PTW Innovation Tour on Metal Working – Future Trends" at AMB 2012 can now be made. Interested companies should directly contact the Institute of Production Management, Technology and Machine Tools (PTW) at Darmstadt Technical University (e-mail: AMB@ptw.tu-darmstadt.de, tel.: +49 (0)6151 16-2156).

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