Delcam adds robot for additive manufacturing research

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Delcam adds robot for additive manufacturing research

18 January 2016

Delcam has added an ABB robot fitted with a Fronius CMT Advanced welding head to the range of manufacturing equipment at its Birmingham site.  The new unit will be used mainly for research into the programming of robots for the additive manufacturing of metals with Delcam’s PowerMILL Robot software.
Cold Metal Transfer welding was initially developed by Fronius to join materials with different properties, in particular for welding aluminium to steel.  The process uses very high frequency movement of the wire to give a clean, spatter-free material transfer.  It provides a stable, reproducible deposition of material that Delcam believes should have great potential in metal additive manufacturing.
The ABB robot arm offers six axes of movement, with an additional two axes, tilt and rotation, provide by the table holding the material.  This additional flexibility allows parts to be oriented into the optimum position as they are being built so enabling complex shapes to be created with less need for extra support structures.
PowerMILL Robot makes it as easy to program a robot for machining as it is to program a five-axis machine tool.  As a fully-associated application inside PowerMILL, users have access to all the multi-axis machining strategies within PowerMILL and can use all the system’s project management options to manage, store and retrieve data.
As well as making it possible to program robots for additive manufacturing, PowerMILL Robot can be used for tool-to-part applications, especially for machining large parts, such as composite panels that need to be trimmed, or for part-to-tool applications, such as grinding or polishing.

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　　总部位于英国的Delcam公司，是一家先进CAD/CAM软件供应商，其产品主要用于航空航天、汽车、医疗设备和模具行业的复杂零部件制造。近日，Delcam公司购买了一台装有一个Fronius CMT先进焊接头的新型ABB机器人。该公司计划使用这台机器人研究使用其PowerMILL Robot interface软件为用于金属增材制造的机器人进行编程。
　　据了解，这台ABB机器人臂可实现六轴运动，另外固定操作对象的台面还有两个轴，可以进行倾斜和旋转。该公司介绍称，这种多轴机器更加灵活使得他们能够在3D打印过程中把部件调整到最佳位置，从而无需创建额外的支撑结构也能制造出复杂的形状。
　　这台新ABB机器人将会在PowerMILL Robot平台上运行，这是由Delcam专门为了实现对多轴机器人快速准确编程而设计的界面插件。PowerMILL Robot可以完全与PowerMILL集成，而后者是Delcam的旗舰3D CAM解决方案可以对2至5轴数控铣床的刀具路径进行编程，这样就使用户能够使用该系统的所有项目管理功能来管理、存储和检索制造数据。

　　“PowerMILL Robot将编程一个机器人加工程序变得和操作编程一个五轴机床一样容易。”Delcam在一份新闻稿中称：“与此同时，它也能够为一台用于增材制造的机器人编程，PowerMILL 可以被用于工具到部件的应用，这使它特别适合加工大型部件，比如需要修剪的复合板，以及部件到工具的应用，如研磨或抛光。”
　　而这次，Delcam采购这台特别的ABB机器人并将其专门放到在伯明翰的分支机构主要是为了进行一项关于金属增材制造的研究，这是迄今为止工业级3D打印技术中增长最快的部分。

　　为此，Delcam的这台机器还配备了一个Fronius Cold Metal Transfer（CMT）先进焊接头。Cold Metal Transfer是焊接技术公司Fronius开发的一种将具有不同属性材料——比如铝和刚——焊接在一起的方法，该技术可实现材料的稳定、重现性好、无飞溅的沉积，Delcam认为其在金属3D打印技术方面具有巨大的应用潜力。
　　Delcam在2014年被著名设计软件公司欧特克收购，成为后者独立运营的全资子公司。e