General Competition (November 1993)

Strategic Machine Tool Technologies: Spindles

Sponsor: National Center For Manufacturing Sciences, Inc.

• Project Performance Period: 7/1/1994 - 1/31/1999
• Total project (est.): $7,490,381.00
• Requested ATP funds: $3,478,813.00

NCMS proposes a suite of research tasks aimed at a significant improvement in the technologies for machine-tool spindles. The spindle is the drive shaft on a machine tool, the part that holds the cutting tools and spins it. Spindles are one of the most critical elements in a high-performance machine tool -- the precision and productivity of the machine is limited by the precision, power, and speed of the spindle. The NCMS project will incorporate new concepts and materials in bearings, motors, seals, shafts, cooling, lubrication and housing design to produce a state-of-the-art spindle. Three areas offer significant possibilities for major cost reductions and productivity gains: new bearings and shaft technologies to build spindles with very high dynamic stiffness so that automotive machining tasks that now require three to four sequential steps in separate machine tools can be reduced to a single pass on one tool; new motor technologies for high-stiffness, high-torque, and low weight to enable the substitution of flexible machinery for fixed transfer lines; and high-speed, long-life hybrid ceramic bearings with electronically controlled lubrication and advanced cooling systems for spindles that can remove metal rapidly without high cutting forces. As one example of the importance of these tasks, the U.S. automotive industry machines about 200 million holes per year in planetary carriers alone. Currently three to four separate machining stations are required to machine these holes. Every machining station removed represents more than 500,000 hours per year in machining and related expenses which would be saved on the cost of U.S. automotive transmissions. The NCMS team for this project includes Manufacturing Laboratories, Inc., Texas Instruments, Inc., Ford Motor Company, General Motors, Giddings & Lewis, Inc., Setco Industries, Inc., Aesop, Inc., and ORSCO, Inc.

For project information:

Mrs. Joane Hauglie, (313) 995-7987

Active Project Participants

• Aesop, Inc. (Bow, NH)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Ford Motor Company, Alpha Development Center (Detroit, MI)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• General Motors Corporation, NAO Technical Center (Pontiac, MI)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Giddings & Lewis Machine Tools (formerly Giddings & Lewis Automation) (Fond Du Lac, WI)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Manufacturing Laboratories, Inc. (Las Vegas, NV)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Olofsson Machine Tools, Inc. (Lansing, MI)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Setco Sales Company (Cincinnati, OH)
  [Original, Active Member]
  
• Timken (formerly Torrington Company) (Torrington, CT)
  [Original, Active Member]
  

ATP Project Manager

Jack Boudreaux, (301) 975-3560
jack.boudreaux@nist.gov