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8 different technologies to improve the shot blasting process
Leading manufacturers of high-pressure aluminum injection parts use injection moulding to manufacture them and a shared shot blasting process to remove burrs.
The shot blasting process helps to effectively eliminate burrs but has several disadvantages:
At the beginning of the year, Ennomotive launched a challenge to find alternatives to the shot blasting process for aluminum injection parts.
Different technologies were presented, such as: soda blasting, CO2 ice blasting, water deburring, thermal deburring, robot deburring, 3D vision, electrolyte plasma, ultrasonic cleaning, electro-polishing, chemical etc.
It seems that the solutions that better meet the requirements of quality, timing and costs are those using robots. As a result, it seems that robotics will be the future of shot blasting!
However, the number of technologies that you can find in the market is quite. The following table summarizes some of the solutions proposed, with their respective solvers. If you are interested in their solutions, you can click on the links!
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- The process is quite aggressive, degrades the installation and requires high maintenance.
- Leaks blasting material into near installations.
- Parts deformation.
- Requires rework to eliminate blasting material from the part using a file or through blowing.
- Requires water treatment to avoid environmental problems.
Technologies | Caractheristics | Proposed by | See the solution |
---|---|---|---|
1. New Robot integrated in the Injection Cell | Six axis robot ceiling mounted. It brings the part to deburring tools (integrated in a modular design). | Stephen Sikorski | Solution_stephen |
2. Existing Robot in the Injection Cell | Using current robots in existing Injection Cell. The part is laid on a rigid bench, the robot acts and then the part moves through a conveyor belt until the end | Mauro Tomasi | Solution_mauro Solution_mauro_prop2 Solution_mauro_photo2 |
3. New Robot outside the Injection Cell | Another Robot-Cell be integrated into the existing Injection System. The part is laid on a rigid bench and moves through a conveyor belt until the deburring cell | Mauro Tomasi | Solution_mauro Solution_mauro_prop1 Solution_mauro_photo1 |
4. New Robot integrated in the Injection Cell | Robot ground mounted. It brings the part to deburring tools (integrated in a modular design). | F. Javier Muñoz | Solution_fjavier__prop1 Solution_fjavier_1 Solution_fjavier_2 |
5. Soda blasting | Shot Blasting with soda crystals (similar effect as with sand blasting). Avoid environmental problems as soda can be diluted in water and thus, can be filtered. | F. Javier Muñoz | Solution_fjavier_1 Solution_fjavier_2 Solution_fjavier__prop2 |
6. High pressure water deburring | Automated deburring chamber with high pressure water | Thomas Villalón Jr. | Solution_Thomas |
7. Electrolyte-plasma | Process operating temperature 60- 80 ºC | Artur Czajkowski | Solution_Artur |
8. Chemical | Dilute hydrochloric acid, dilute sulphuric acid, dilute nitric acid | Jeff Ausfeld | Solution_Jeff_1 Solution_Jeff_2 Solution_Jeff_3 |