International STEP-NC Demonstration of Feed Optimization, High-Speed Machining, Tolerance-Driven Tool Compensation, and Traceability

On March 10-12, 2008, the STEP Manufacturing team (ISO TC184 SC4 WG3 T24) met in Sandviken and Stockholm, Sweden to demonstrate and discuss advanced uses of the STEP-NC AP238 standard. The participants in the demonstrations included Airbus/Univ. Bordeaux, Boeing, Eurostep, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, NIST, Sandvik Coromant, Scania, STEP Tools, and Univ. of Vigo.

Highlights included:

• Feed and speed optimization: Boeing, Sandvik Coromant, and STEP Tools showed how to improve nominal machining process plans to generate optimized process plans just prior to machining by adding cutter cross sectional area information to the STEP-NC file.

• High-speed machining: Airbus/Univ. Bordeaux, Sandvik Coromant, and STEP Tools showed HSM with STEP-NC and demonstrated new approaches for representing large volumes of toolpath curves.

• Tolerance-driven tool compensation: KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Eurostep, Sandvik Coromant, Scania, and STEP Tools showed how STEP-NC machining information can be linked with tolerances, wireless measuring equipment, and ISO 13399 tool descriptions to simplify tool compensation for more accurate machining.

• Traceability: Univ. of Vigo and NIST showed a series of traceability extensions for linking STEP-NC machining programs with sensor feedback and machine state information during execution.

• Contributions from France, Spain, Sweden, and USA

• Test parts from Airbus and Scania.

• Cutting Tools from Sandvik Coromant and Prototyp

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