Automotive Design and Production

JUL 2014

Automotive Design & Production is the one media brand invested in delivering your message in print, online, via email, and in-person to the right automotive industry professionals at the right time.

Issue link: https://adp.epubxp.com/i/335957

Contents of this Issue

Navigation

Page 35 of 52

31 "all of the parasitic losses, like pumps, electronics, and hydraulic units" that occur when the machine isn't machining parts. He says that studies at UC-Berkeley show that the amount of power being consumed for no productive reason is on the order of 40 to 60%. In addition to which, you have to calculate into the non- cutting time of the machine the overhead for the plant lighting, HVAC, etc. "Getting the non-running times down to a minimum makes the machines far more sustainable," he says. "So if we can use a fve- axis machine or a mill-turn, where we can do everything on a single platform and the spindle is cutting the whole time, we can show dramatic decreases in energy use." He acknowledges that while people are familiar with their computers and smartphones going into energy- saving "sleep mode," this is some- thing that is just becoming part of machine tool functionality, with pumps turning of and electronics powering down after a user-speci- fed period of non-use. When, as he points out, it is likely that standard job shops may have just 50% spindle utilization, that sleep mode can make a big diference on energy use. But in higher-volume production, big diferences can be realized in energy savings via small things. Hansel points to an automatic toolchanger for a machining center. While a toolchange can be made in two seconds, he says that if they are able to reduce that by 0.1 second, "it may seem like nothing, but over the course of a year in a production environment, that adds up to a huge amount of time that the machine would otherwise be idle." And wasting energy. They're using inverter control to vary the output of motors to 0714ADP FEATURE Machining Tools -- Digital Version.indd 31 6/17/2014 1:10:21 PM

Articles in this issue

Archives of this issue

view archives of Automotive Design and Production - JUL 2014