Turkey's most advanced civil and

defence aerospace supplier, TIA

Industries, is being supported in many of

its manufacturing activities by software

systems from GTMA's CGTech.

TIA, from its 275,000 sq metre facility in

Ankara, provides national and international

skills and services to global aerospace companies. It has developed its skills and services

in strategic business units, including fixed

and rotor wing aircraft, aerostructure components and systems, UAV,

space and special programmes.

With nearly 5000 staff, it has made significant investment in machine tool technology

and its shopfloor is equipped with 'best in

class' machines for each task, with 3-, 4-

and 5-axis horizontal and vertical NC

machining centres. These cut materials

including aluminium, titanium and high

strength steel. High speed machining techniques are

used, with the latest HSM

machine tools - about 200 people are

machining components 24/7.

HIGH VARIETY PRODUCTION

Supporting the machine shop with all of its

manufacturing programs, the company runs

Catia and Siemens NX CAD/CAM software,

and sometimes Esprit CAM. Each has the

ability to do the work required by TAI, including 4- and 5-axis NC tool paths. "Ultimately,

the customer will choose the CAD/CAM

route, sometimes making the use of specific

software mandatory," says Onur Bahtiyar,

Leader, NC Programming Department.

His team create the manufacturing cutting

tool paths for the various machine tools,

and also support the tooling development

engineers who create the assembly fixtures

and tooling needed for sub system

production.

Low volume, high variety production means

the department typically is working on 150

projects for various customers and for its own

range of aircraft, which include the Hurkos

pilot trainer and T129 ATAK helicopter.

The NC department needs to initiate every

possible gain and this was part of the drive

that led to investment by TIA in CGTech's

NC simulation and verification software VERICUT.

Floating licences mean each PC can

run the simulation program.

"Before investing in VERICUT software the

NC programmer only knew the results of the

toolpath during the actual 'prove out' trial

run on the machine tool, " said NC Engineer,

Mete Koyuncu. It had to be done

very carefully, with reduced speeds and

feeds and was risky and time consuming.

Problems could include spindle or axes collisions on the machine/workholding and

gouging of the raw material.

"VERICUT simulation allows the prove-out

process to be done in a virtual environment

in the NC Programming Department," he

says now. "The G code NC program created

by the CAM system is taken into VERICUT

for verification. Although the first actual part

run will be done carefully most of the errors

will have been found using VERICUT and

corrected by the NC programming team.

We feel more confident now we use VERICUT and the machine operators also feel

more comfortable running the part knowing

it has successfully passed through

VERICUT."

TOOL SIMULATION

In fact, NC programs are only released to

the company's manufacturing network after

being successfully machined in VERICUT.

From here the operator can pull the 'safe NC

program' down to the machine tool's controller.

All fixturing and set up details are supplied by the NC programming

department

along with the comprehensive cutting tool

lists required to make the component.

Machining and VERICUT macros may also

be included with the production data.

VERICUT modules at TAI include 3-, 4- and

5-axis machine tool simulation, Auto Diff,

and also two seats of CGTech's OptiPath

optimisation software. This software is

applied to most new machine tools to

reduce the air cutting times, and if

OptiPath is applied to adjust the chip load it

reduces tool breakage and increases cutting tool life.

TAI also supports MRO (maintenance,

repair and overhaul) operations and the first

challenge is often finding the technical documents, and from

these creating a solid

model to work from. Sometimes it has to

reverse engineer the component, but

whichever method is used it will always use

VERICUT to prove the part.

www.cgtech.co.uk

GTMA AEROSPACE SUPPLIERS

12

GTMA

SUPPORT FOR AERO MACHINE SHOPS

CGTech SOFTWARE PACKAGE HELPS PRODUCTION FLOW

Top: VERICUT simulates the machining of

complex multi axis components used in aerospace

and, above, the F-16 Falcon - TIA has completed

significant enhancements to the Falcon for a

number of national airforce customers. Photos

courtesy TIA and CGTech.