paths and showing, for example, whether holes will be bored deep enough for subsequent reaming.

The operator does not require any knowledge of computer language with these controls, and selects the appropriate conversational 'module' from a menu of five basic machining patterns covering hole drilling, facing, side cutting, pocket milling and contouring. Each has an associated detail menu, which in the case of the hole drilling menu includes drilling, peck drilling, boring, fine boring, back boring, tapping or reaming. Once the operator has keyed in dimensional data and material description for the component, the control will select tools for the job from a file of up to 160 tools and will automatically select cutting conditions, which can be overruled by the operator if necessary. Although there is some sacrifice in machine utilisation using conversational programming systems, says Westland, programming time is minimal and door-to-door times have been greatly reduced. According to Elgar-PMT, the conversational programming eliminates tedious production engineering work, such as the calculating of feeds and speeds, and gives the operator back a degree of involvement in the production process and makes him more a machine tool operator with skills than a mere machine minder. Although the policy at Milton Keynes is to avoid central computer control of machine tools, central computers still have a role to play in the factory in matching the improved
Figure 2 An Elgar-PMT machine with Fanuc control at Westland's Milton Keynes plant

productivity of the machine shop with improvements in the production control and administration areas. A plant monitoring and control system based on an IBM 8100 distributed processor has been installed at Milton Keynes to control plant utilisation. The system monitors attendance, tracks order flow and displays up-to-date information on job status, enabling available plant to be scheduled more productively. The computer, which runs on software based on IBM's COPICS production monitoring and control package, is networked to the Yeovil works of Westland. Regularly up-dated information on pro-

duction batch movements is sent down the line to Yeovil for costing and accounting purposes. Also, information on attendance is sent and used for payroll calculations and planning. However, in the area of production control, says Westland, full capacity planning on the computer is still to be achieved. A system linking tool operation with accounting is soon to be introduced and an on-line routing system on the IBM 8100 is about to be updated. Other improvements on the way at the Milton Keynes factory include a measuring centre for carrying out sample checks on components.

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robotic welding is that 'keyholing' is possible in the thinnest sheet. 'Keyholding' implies that the plasma arc melts a hole right through the sheet and molten material flows from the front of the hole round to solidify at the rear, thus ensuring a full penetration weld. Using manual methods slight irregularities in the speed of traverse can cause irreparably large holes in sheet below 1.6mm.

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downhand mode, and high quality welds have been obtained. Research is now concentrated on making the process tolerant of deviations in the weld line. A variety of proprietary optical seam sensors are being evaluated, and a system of magnetic beam deflection is being applied. This latter has considerable potential because in a plasma welding process the power of the beam is sensibly independent of the length of the beam. The robot will thus be able to weld in inaccessible corners without having to insert the arm, by deflecting and extending the beam, by many centimetres if necessary. Hughes' endeavours in this field were rewarded recently by the Institution of Production Engineers with the 1983 Lord Austin Prize. Automated welding of thin sheet has long been seen as desirable, but previous attempts at long runs have always been bedevilled by the general 'jerkiness' of the machinery and the control system. British Rail Engineering, for instance, had considerable problems in the seventies attempting to automate 70 foot runs on the sides of Mk III carriages in 1.6mm mild steel. The new possibilities offered by robots and their sophisticated control systems promise significant advances for a variety of industries especially those using very thin sheet, and materials such as aluminium and its alloys where welding speeds higher than the capacity of a human operator are possible. The Production Engineer March 1984

RESEARCH AT Coventry (Lanchester) Polytechnic has dramatically extended the capabilities of robotic welding techniques Thin sheet is being successfully welded at speeds in excess of 4m/min with full penetration and complete control. Using a Unimate Puma 5-axis robot and a BOC Microplasma welding unit rated at 15 A, Russell Hughes, then a final year undergraduate, has successfully raised the speeds at which controllable welding can be carried out far above previously accepted levels (many texts claim about 17mm/sec as the practicable maximum). Redesign work was necessary on the welding torch so that it can be mounted coaxially with the final joint of the robot arm, thus eliminating a datum error with which the robot's software could not easily cope. Path error has now been reduced to 0.1 mm. The application of this robotic system has been to thin sheet work, from 0.01mm to lmm thick, mostly in 321 stainless steel. Control has not presented any problems on runs of regular geometry, but it was found that the flow of shield gas had to be increased to overcome the draught created by the high speed of traverse. On straight runs the limiting factor is welding current, as welding speed is effectively a direct function of current. With a more powerful welding rig, still higher speeds are expected to be possible. A feature of the precise control afforded by 46

Russell Hughes

Hughes has continued his research as a postgraduate on an SERC grant, and has attracted the interest and support of a number of major companies, among them Westland Helicopters and Austin Rover. The robot has been used successfully in vertical and inclined welding positions as well as the horizontal