http://www.thealuminumchannel.com
The process of machining aluminum can be extremely demanding on the material. Rapid rates of metal removal, required to be competitive in such markets as aerospace and automotive, can generate significant levels of heat and stress in the part as it is machined. If we consider the aerospace market, the change to monolithic design has led to complete components machined from one large piece of plate which will result in more than 90% of the material being removed. If there is significant residual stress in the original piece of plate this stress is released as the machining process takes place. The release of this stress will result in the material 'moving' during the machining operation. This can lead to tooling breakage and certainly at the end of the process the part does not conform to the required dimensions and meet the necessary specification. A rework operation is attempted to save the part, but in many cases after the re-work the part is still scrapped. This is a huge cost to the customers. The KaiserSelect Aerospace Plate™ product has been designed to a have a lower level of residual stress. Only one product is supplied so even the easiest of parts can benefit from having consistent repeatable material, and machine shops usually have a range of easy and difficult parts. This results in a significant reduction in distortion or 'movement' of the material during and after machining. The result is parts that meet the final dimensional requirements without any re-work. We have several documented cases where parts were being re-worked more than 90% of the time and with the KaiserSelect Aerospace Plate™ parts were being produced 100% Right First Time. Machine shops would often need to machine from one side and then turn a part over and machine from the other side to compensate for the material movement. Using KaiserSelect Plate™ the parts can be machined from one side only and allow significant process time improvement. KaiserSelect Plate™ facilitates improved performance through reduced machining time and reduced waste through the removal of the re-work process. These combined have provided our machine shop customers improved profitability and velocity through their manufacturing centers.