Barrel tool technology lands in UK aerospace industry

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As the global aerospace industry strives for weight reduction in component parts, the shape of the part becomes more organic, closely aligned to the form of the surface it mates to. To this end, Open Mind has worked closely with cutting tool manufacturers in the UK on barrel tools. The barrel tool concept is a type of ballnose end mill cutter with an excessively large radius ground on the flank. For example, a 10 mm diameter ball nosed cutter will have a 5 mm end radius whereas a 10 mm barrel cutter may have a radius of 20, 50 or even 100 mm.

Hyper-Mill supports three types of barrel tools

Here, the step-over value of the barrel cutter can exceed that of the ballnose cutter by a factor of 20. The result is an increased contact area between cutting tool and work piece, reducing the number of machining passes to generate the surface to the required tolerance. The tool is says to gain a longer life span (as the material is cut evenly and smoothly over the long contact area), better metal removal rates and a reduced cycle time.

Where innovation meets excellence

During the development phase of the barrel tool support within Hyper-Mill, Open Mind UK has worked with Yamazaki Mazak UK and specific aerospace customers to highlight the benefits of the technology. On one aerospace component the cycle time was claimed to fall from 1 hour 40 minutes to just 20 minutes, in 304L stainless steel.

Hyper-Mill supports three different types of barrel tools in 5 axis cycles to allow a simple user friendly programming process for machining complex components where the floor or wall or both floor and wall combinations must be machined without mismatch. These combined with lens cutters and traditional tooling give a range of tools to machine complex parts.

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