Member News

Radiotherapy aims to deliver a curable radiation dose to tumours while sparing surrounding healthy tissue, which is achieved by the accurate conformal delivery of ionising radiation via an external beam using linear accelerators, or an internal beam using sealed radiation source (called brachytherapy). Modern radiotherapy involves CT-simulation, 3D-treatment planning and its quality assurance processes prior to patient treatment to produce highly conformal dose distributions and to ensure its safe and accurate delivery. It is common to build anthropomorphic RDPs through moulding and casting, to mimic the radiation properties of humans as a radiation dose cannot be directly measured in patients. As part of quality assurance (QA) of patient treatment plans, patient-specific dose measurements are often performed using RDPs combined with various dose measurement tools. Unfortunately, anthropomorphic RDPs manufactured through traditional moulding and casting techniques…

AMT: Let’s start with a quick outline of what the AM Hub is. How was it set up and what are its objectives? John Croft: The AM Hub was formed to introduce Australian manufacturing companies in Australia into additive manufacturing. It's been born from a $1.85m Victorian government grant and will run for three years. It was officially launched in September 2018, and has now been running for a year, and since its inception, we now have 153 member companies under the Hub. I think the Hub needs to be the catalyst. What that means is, if you look at a pie, you’re going to have several segments around the pie, with the Hub at the centre acting as the catalyst. What we're trying to do is to bring together the service providers, the technology providers, government mechanisms, industry participants, and we’re working with research…

With a fibre laser, the laser beam is generated in an active optical fibre. It is then guided to the cutting head of the machine through a transport fibre cable. Fibre lasers are best suited when using nitrogen as an assist cutting gas for thin and medium sheet thicknesses, up to 12mm, and non-ferrous materials such as copper and brass. New higher-powered fibre modules allow thicker materials, including mild streel and stainless steel, to be cut with comparable CO2 cut quality and speeds. For thicknesses below 6mm when cutting using nitrogen as the assist gas, fibre lasers are up to five times faster than CO2. To cut mild steel with oxygen the fibre laser beam is defocused to the same diameter as the CO2 kerf width, so the exothermic reaction can take place, the same as oxy fuel gas cutting. Fibre lasers are more compact than CO2 lasers but deliver more than double the power output, with the same input power supply. The comparative wavelength of the fibre…

With sectors such as pump and valve, oil & gas, automotive and aerospace continuing to specify stainless steel components, the challenge for cutting tool manufacturers is to deliver solutions that can provide ever greater tool life and/or productivity to help machine shops succeed in an intensively competitive global marketplace. At Sandvik Coromant, there are high hopes for one such new solution. The challenge There are many different family groups within the ISO M stainless-steel material classification. However, two of the most common are austenitic stainless steels and duplex stainless steels. Austenitic stainless steels include familiar grades such as 304 and 316. Although relatively soft in the annealed condition, and with very good ductility, these grades undergo extensive work hardening during any form of machining. Work hardening produces hard surfaces and hard chips, which in turn lead to notch wear and compromised surface finish on the…

The new facilities make up the largest space of its kind in Australia with a 1200sqm workshop housing advanced manufacturing and prototyping tools and machines including 3D printers, vacuum formers, industrial robots and waterjet cutters. Technical and trade-qualified staff will assist students and researchers in bringing their ideas to life. UQ Faculty of Engineering, Architecture and Information Technology Executive Dean, Professor Vicki Chen said the new facilities would give UQ students a competitive edge when entering the workforce. “One of our main roles as a university is to give our students the confidence and capability to embrace the challenges of a changing world,” Professor Chen said. “And with the launch of UQ Innovate, we are in a much stronger position to fuel their curiosity, so they can drive sustainable solutions at the cutting edge, today and tomorrow.” Design-and-build teams from the student-led UQ Racing and UQ Space teams have used the University’s facilities and expertise to produce nationally competitive race cars and rockets. Managing Director of UQ Space, engineering and…

Family-owned and established in 1995, Sharpe Engineering operates from four facilities located in Queensland – in Roma, Chinchilla, Virginia and Zillmere. Sharpe Engineering boasts upwards of 50 pieces of plant, including CNC machines, milling machines, drilling machines and manual lathes, as well as Australia’s largest threading capacity. All of Sharpe Engineering’s equipment is procured from world-class suppliers, and the company’s state-of-the-art machine inventory guarantees the precision and the accuracy of its products. Sharpe Engineering’s equipment is a key part in allowing the business to produce quality, cost-effective products. It owns two Mazak 21-inch hollow-spindle Power Master Chuckers, and a 7-inch hollow spindle Power Master Universal. Sharpe relies on its world-class equipment line-up to remain at the sharp end of manufacturing for the oil and gas drilling industry. The latest addition, recently purchased by Sharpe, is a Mazak Slant Turn 550 turning centre, supplied by John Hart, which is used in the manufacture of drilling tools and thread repairs on drill…

Insufficient grip that causes slipping parts, pushback in chuck jaws and collets wearing out prematurely are issues well known to CNC turning machine tool operators. The resultant production downtime, operator idle time, and expense of new or re-worked jaws is a significant problem. Dimac has recently launched a new service designed to eliminate such issues, using a new form of carbide application equipment called Rocklinizer from the USA. The application process improves clamping force by as much as 50% - thereby providing significant extra grip on workholding equipment such as jaws and collets, while wear is accordingly reduced. The new service uses the proven spark deposition process called Rocklinizing to easily and quickly boost the grip coefficient of workholding jaws and collets. The unit electronically applies a hard and wear-resistant surface of Tungsten Carbide, Titanium Carbide or Rockhard electrode material to workholding tools. Material is impregnated both underneath and on top of the workpiece surface. Unlike welding or metal spraying, no appreciable heat is…

A hand-held device to predict heart failure based on saliva could help millions of potential victims take preventative steps to avoid their fate. Nano-sensors on the tip of the diagnostic stick measure heart disease biomarkers from saliva to accurately predict the risk of heart disease, failure or heart attack, then warn users via a simple app. Now a multi-partner deal has just been signed to bring the life-saving technology to market by 2021. The collaboration is being led by an Australian start-up based in Melbourne called ESN Cleer, with RMIT University and the IMCRC now researching and developing the device for pilot manufacture. ESN Cleer CEO Leopoldt de Bruin says the collaboration represents some of the best minds in medical device innovation, design and manufacture. “We’re really pleased to be able to bring these strands together in addressing such a major global health challenge,” De Bruin said. “Of the 400 million people who suffer from…

I often remark to my children or anyone who will listen at trade events that there are only two kinds of people in the world: cutting tool people and everyone else. In the case of my kids (and our Marketing Manager, for that matter), they issue a despairing groan and roll their eyes. This is not a trivial proposition – and it goes deeper! Even amongst the broader Cutting Tool Community, it’s my long-held opinion that it’s us Tap People who are the crème de la crème. On further investigation, the logic behind this highly reasonable position is both obvious and compelling (to me, at least). Once upon a time… My love affair with taps began in my schooldays, while working at the Sutton Tools factory during the summer holidays. That passion continues to this day, based on the philosophical concept of “value add”. I am a confirmed Tap Person. To the…

In the last few years, the concept and implementation of cooling solutions for cutting tools has enjoyed such a surge in popularity and enthusiasm it is almost as if it had never existed before. CNC machine manufacturers throughout the world have invested time and resources to develop solutions that can supply coolant at high pressures, and all new machine tools today are supplied with a high-pressure coolant option. Manufacturers from industries such as aerospace, automotive and large part production appreciate the immense advantage of supplying coolant directly to the cutting edge and are only ordering machines for milling centres or turning centres with high-pressure coolant capabilities – offering a minimum of 70 bar and up to as much as 300 bar. Mass production manufacturers are also benefiting from the integration of Iscar’s JetCut tools into their processes. Keeping temperature at bay One of the most serious enemies of carbide inserts is the high temperature of the materials that results from…

The high temperature resistance of nickel-based alloys often presents process managers with challenges during machining, not least because there is still relatively little experience to draw on compared to other materials. If heat-resistant super alloys are milled with carbide indexable inserts, the cutting speed is only around 45 metres/min. Milling cutters with ceramic cutting tool materials achieve cutting values that are approximately 20 times higher during roughing: with cutting speeds of up to 1,000 metres/min, they achieve a much higher metal removal rate. The higher feed rate easily compensates for the depth of cut, which is generally lower for ceramic cutting edges than for carbide edges: In specific applications, the metal removal rate of Inconel 718 with ceramic cutting edges…

The phrase “all is number”, attributed to Pythagoras, is more pertinent now than ever before. Numbers enable us to capture and process physical magnitudes, be they positions, temperatures, flow rates, field strengths and many other quantities. A vast inventory of ingenious methods exists for measuring – or describing – the physical world using numbers. The age of computing has added a new, highly versatile tool: simulation. Simulation permits the inference of data that is not directly available for measurement. It is possible, for example, to gauge the temperature deep inside an object from measurements of the surface temperature combined with physical understanding of what is happening inside the object. The inaccessibility of a measurement point must not be strictly spatial. The data of interest can also be in the future, or even in a system that has not physically been built. Compared to physical testing, simulation can deliver huge savings in time and costs, as well as avoiding waste and potentially…

Industry 4.0 refers to advanced manufacturing technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI). It also facilitates new ways to apply old concepts such as automation and robotics, both of which have long been used in manufacturing (with outstanding results). Embracing emerging, intelligent technology is essential for Australian manufacturers to compete effectively in a tough globalised environment. While the manufacturing industry in Australia has recently returned to growth, strong competition from overseas manufacturers remains a concern for local firms. Manufacturers in this country tend to have higher costs in terms of energy, labour, materials and logistics, compared with overseas competitors. One of the ways to potentially overcome this disadvantage is to embrace smarter technology, such as IoT or AI. For example, one manufacturer has used cloud-based analytics and IoT to reduce equipment inspection times by 100%. This helped the company avoid a potential cost of $361 per second for downtime caused by manual inspections. This illustrates the enormity of savings that could be delivered…