Author:

Keywords:

manufacturing processes

Abstract:

This paper describes the development of a robot based fettling cell for medium to heavy section castings in low series. The fettling cell consists of a commercial robot used for foundry applications and a flexible clamping unit, especially developed for this application. The removal of risers and feeders is obtained through an oxy-fuel cutting process, followed by a force controlled grinding operation. Existing off-line robot programming software has been adapted for the off-line generation of a collision free robot path. The cutting path is automatically derived based on the available process knowledge and from two CAD models, one model describing the complete casting geometry including risers and feeders and a second model describing the final product geometry. Process models for force controlled stub-grinding have been developed and will be used for tool path planning.