What about combining milling and grinding?

Grinding, of course, is typically thought of as a finishing operation. Milling is more about removing a stock envelope. In many plants, these two operations are performed in different locations. In an even larger number of plants, they are performed by different employees who have different skills. Combining the two operations would not seem to be an obvious choice.

For particularly large parts,such as jaw crusher,grinding mill,stone crusher,milling machine,rock crusher,crusher etc. Mr. Stine says that the range of potential operations expands to include turning. A rotary table that can turn at 70 rpm can deliver 1,500 sfm of cutting speed to a turning tool that cuts at a diameter of 7 feet. This is exactly the solution that GE Gas Turbines (Greenville, South Carolina) adopted for machining large turbine wheels. Parts that used to be machined on a grinder, a vertical lathe and a boring mill now receive all of this machining on one Magerle machine tool. The change saves about 6 hours of setup time and 2 days of queue time, according to engineers at the plant. Overall, there has been a 30 percent cycle time reduction.

However, certain profile grinding machines have developed in the direction of this type of multitasking, even when combining operations was not necessarily the goal. The MFP-TC grinding machine pictured, from Magerle (represented in the United States by United Grinding Technologies, Miamisburg, Ohio), provides an example. To support an increasing role for creep-feed grinding (a higher-metal-removal rate process than grinding just for finish), this machine features a powerful spindle and stiff hydrostatic ways. Further, because wheel types such as conventional abrasive, plated CBN and vitrified CBN all excel in different applications, the machine has been equipped with the capability to store different wheels and automatically switch between them.

This latter feature relies on proven technology. Specifically, it relies on a toolchange arm like that of a machining center, along with toolholders (or wheelholders in this case) that use the HSK interface of a machining center’s toolholders. Taken together, this machine’s tool changing, spindle power and rigidity produce the equivalent of a highly capable machining center. Precise heavy milling can be performed on this machine, and milling and drilling tools can be stored in the tool magazine alongside the grinding wheels.