A Study on Performance Improvement of Whirling Machines

In order to meet the increasing competitive pressures coupled with higher demands for component quality, whirling machines have been at the cutting edge of the automobile industry for more than 25 years. The hard whirling process can save on machining time and operation elimination. Hard whirling is done dry, without coolant. The chips carry away nearly all of the heat during cutting, leaving the workpiece cool and minimizing any thermal geometry variations. The surface finish and profile accuracy are close to grinding quality. Whirling machines usually consist of four major parts; 1) loading system that requires the necessary axial speeds, 2) head stock that needs high precision clamping and positioning system at the chuck and tailstock, 3) whirling unit that demands the high cutting speeds and cutting power fer cutting deep thread profiles and 4) unloading system that requires an easy workpiece unloading. Also, capabilities of the whirling machine can be improved by attaching a vision system to the machine. Most of whirling machines in Korean automobile industry are imported from the Leistritz company, Germany and the Hasegawa company, Japan. Tn this paper, a basic research will be performed to improve and enhance the existing whirling machines. Finally, a new Korean whirling machine will be proposed and developed.

Whirling machine의 성능 개선을 위한 연구