Risø Campus Mechanical Workshop has just received a new CNC milling machine capable of simultaneous five-axis machining and which can handle larger and heavier items than any machine of its kind at DTU.
It was no ordinary machine that was unloaded at DTU Nutech’s mechanical workshop on 10 May. The YCM TCV3000A-5AX is in every way bigger and more precise than any of the workshop’s other CNC-controlled machines—i.e. machine tools capable of milling computer-drawn objects in all kinds of metal. It is, in fact, so sophisticated that it could be used to manufacture missiles and other deadly weaponry. That said, the head of the workshop, Johnny Egtved Jørgensen, has sworn not to do so:
“In order to be approved as a buyer, we had to supply Fanuc—the Japanese company supplying the machine’s control system—with a detailed description of the purpose and location, even though the machine has built-in tracking so that they always know where it is,” Johnny explains. The machine is without question the workshop’s most expensive and most complex procurement to date.
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The approval process dragged on, but in mid-May, the day finally came when Danish haulier Bøje Maskintransport arrived with the 25-tonne machine. The workshop’s gate opening is able to handle a width of four metres, but the machine was 4.35 metres wide, so only after four hours’ disassembly was it possible to drive it through. Inside the workshop building, numerous wires had to be stripped up to the ceiling so that the machine could finally be rolled over to the freshly cast foundation.
Nine hours after its arrival, it was finally ready to be hooked up to electricity and electronics. And one week later, Research Technicians Søren Kamph Nielsen and Thomas Belling were able to begin the four-day course in order to learn how to operate it.
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The first task was a test rig for a gamma camera for ESS—the pan-European neutron research facility being built in Lund, Sweden. PhD students Nicolò Borghi from DTU Nutech is in the process of developing an almost three-metre long so-called collimator in steel to be drilled with several channels so that it can split a light beam into parallel tracks.
The machine will also be a great help when the workshop begins manufacturing TL/OSL instruments which—among other things—are used for geological and archaeological dating, new facilities for wind turbines and wind tunnel, specially designed laboratory equipment—and a great deal more. With its rotating round drill, the machine can work on more workpieces simultaneously, and also perform larger and heavier tasks than any other machine of its kind at DTU.
“This machine will definitely brings smiles to the faces of those inside and outside the workshop,” says Johnny.