Posted: July 4th, 2015

Product Realisation and Materials

Module Outcomes D – Design D1: to be able to assess sustainability issues and the environmental impact of component manufacture D5: to be aware of design for manufacture issues, including assembly, disassembly, maintenance and disposal

P – Engineering Practice P1m: To be able to research and appraise the latest developments associated with rapid manufacture and associated materials P2m: to appraise and apply materials investigation techniques in order to specify appropriate materials for specific component applications P3: To be able to interpret and apply engineering knowledge associated with rapid manufactured components within a case study based environment P4: to be able to source information from data sheets, journals, and internet web-sites to select appropriate materials for component manufacture To use the top-down systems approach to design control systems P7: Through investigation be able to conclude possible quality issues related to the failure and reliability of materials.

Assignment Introduction Despite the introduction of new prototyping technologies that claim to produce overnight tooling through the use of powder technologies there are still limitations with regard to the materials and durability of tooling made on these processes. Traditional metal cutting techniques have therefore had to evolve in order to compete with the time compression characteristics that the new technologies have to offer. The response of the metal cutting sector has been therefore to develop high speed metal cutting technologies. Having the ability to apply this technology to a range of part volumes, high speed cutting does have an important role in current and future manufacturing activities. However, there does tend to be conflicting views as to what exactly constitutes a high speed metal cutting activity.

Assignment Conduct an investigation into the field of metal cutting and high speed metal removal techniques. Consider, tooling characteristics, techniques, capital equipment needed and process support activities within this discipline. Generate a report that has a high level of discussion that consideres the strategic benefits of adopting the above technological technique over a conventional metal cutting approach . A case study approach is advised as this may be beneficial in addressing some of the detail of the technology and will allow discussion on the high speed machining technological aspects. Your report should stress the strategic benefits of adopting the technologies, and discuss how CNC and CADCAM are integrated into strategic policies.

Assignment Submission and Assessment The final project report should be a concise and factual document, divided into sections relative to the work carried out. It should make extensive use of diagrams in order to explain the technological aspects and be a fully referenced piece of work. The assignment contributes 20% to the overall module, and is expected to be approximately 2000 words in length.