When milling is combined with water jet

Water jet and milling cutting machine

This cell is the result of a successful collaboration between ABB France Activité Robotique and the integrator AXIOME.

ABB's robotics business offers its robots, software and robotic solutions for manufacturing industries such as aeronautics, automotive, railways, foundry, metal fabrication, plastics, consumer goods, food and pharmaceutical. With more than 200,000 ABB robots installed worldwide, ABB has the largest robot installed base in France.

AXIOME is a company that designs and manufactures robotic machines. This integrator has a huge expertise in cutting (milling, laser, single or ultrasonic blade, deburring) that adapts to the requirements of the materials and parts to be cut. This includes cutting composite materials that are increasingly investing in more and more areas. However, these materials have technical characteristics to which it is necessary to adapt (such as the risk of delamination).

Adaptability of the robotic solution
Robotics is essential to meet these high technical requirements for cutting carbon parts. ABB and AXIOME have therefore combined their skills to develop a cell to facilitate cutting and finishing. This cell offers the advantage of combining two technologies in a single machine: the milling technology associated with the water jet.

AXIOME chose the ABB robot because it is the ideal tool for precision cutting while respecting geometries and promoting excellent trajectory tracking. ABB robots are designed for direct material handling and for production in harsh environments such as carbon fibre. They allow the production of repeatable parts throughout the production process;

The performance of ABB robots combined with Axiome's know-how in integrating numerous technologies on robotic machines has resulted in the creation of a cell that offers major advantages for the customer: production optimization (no finishing rework); space saving; great flexibility and versatility thanks to a simple and compact design; fully automatic process and quality of the parts produced; reduced risks related to TMS; increased staff skills: training in robot programming.

Given their complementarities and fruitful collaborations, ABB and Axiome intend to develop new projects together to offer the right response to market constraints.

AXIOME has been designated as ABB's preferred French integrator by recently joining the ABB Value Provider Program (VPP). Through this program, ABB wishes to highlight its long-standing relationship of trust with some of its partners. The latter are selected according to precise criteria: their knowledge of the product, robot application and processes, their specific experience, their local presence in the market and their flexibility. These are all strengths that have enabled Axiome, in collaboration with ABB, to successfully complete many installations.

Trametal, Juin 2014