July 21, 2017
Michael Gunner, Chief Minister of the Northern Territory, said the printer, which the NT Government has invested in, would form the centrepiece of a new industrial research hub to be based at CDU’s Casuarina campus in Darwin’s northern suburbs. The hub would pave the way for the creation of jobs into the future for NT residents, as well as generating new economic opportunities in the NT. Gunner joined Vice-Chancellor Professor Simon Maddocks to announce a $400,000 NT Government grant for the purchase of the LightSPEE3D printer. “We want to partner with local enterprises to drive innovation here in the Territory,” Gunner said. “By diversifying the economy through innovation we are opening the door to new economic opportunities for Territorians – both now and into the future.” The 3D printer was invented in the NT by Steven Camilleri and Byron Kennedy, the co-founders of SPEE3D. It will be used to provide a new industrial transformation research hub for advanced manufacturing in the Territory, delivering new tools, skills and technologies,…
July 21, 2017
Researchers from Flinders University in South Australia along with Western Australian company First Graphite Ltd will use the dynamic Vortex Fluidic Device (VFD) to produce high-quality graphene for industrial use. Graphene is the building block of graphite and is one of the most sought after materials in the world because of its robust nature. More than a million metric tons of graphite are mined globally each year. It is 200 times stronger than steel but remains flexible and impermeable, making it ideal for the development of a range of modern technology such as lithium-ion batteries, sensors and transparent-conducting electrodes for flexible solar cells. Based on previous graphite research involving the VFD, First Graphite plans to scale up the process to a commercial level with the potential of delivering high-value carbon materials to global markets. First Graphite Managing Director Craig McGuckin says the potential uses of graphene cover a vast range of industries and he believed the material would eventually be used in most modern technology. “What is required is creating high quality graphene from graphite, doing so quickly…
July 21, 2017
‘No Till’ farming is a new crop planting technology that gained momentum in the early 1990s. Brothers Geoff and Mike Glenn were instrumental in developing this cutting edge technology that revolutionised and brought significant changes to the industry. In 1993 Geoff and Mike founded Agmaster, a company dedicated to the manufacture and distribution of advanced No Till seeding systems, press wheels and rotary harrows for larger-scale crop production farming enterprises across Australia. With extensive farming backgrounds, Geoff and Mike both embarked on an extensive education/seminar program, initially throughout Western Australia before expanding their activities to the cropping regions in the eastern states. From the initial ‘No Till’ concept there has been a continuous stream of agricultural innovations emanating from AgMaster such as Star Harrows, Steel Coil Harrows, Slip and Clip Points, Presswheels, precision seed placement boots and more recently kwik fit systems. Located in Welshpool, in Perth’s inner south-eastern suburbs, Agmaster remains a privately owned family business. Its workshop is equipped with some of the latest manufacturing technology enabling…
July 14, 2017
On 11 July AstraZeneca announced its decision to invest a further $100m in its manufacturing operation in Sydney, which will fund the three specialised production lines for innovative respiratory medicines. The expanded manufacturing capacity will boost international exports from the North Ryde site to over $2.4bn over the next four years, and result in an additional 60 jobs at the facility. The machinery is a result of AstraZeneca’s strong collaboration with ADDE. The Melbourne-based specialist machine designers will build each new production line from scratch to AstraZeneca’s custom design specification. The machines will take a team of 36 people over 12 months to produce. Each production line has the capacity to produce over 70 million units per year of Pulmicort Respules, a medicine for patients with asthma. The medicine is produced in Australia for markets such as China, where we help to treat a proportion of China’s estimated 30 million asthma sufferers. Pascal Soriot, Chief Executive Officer of AstraZeneca, said: “AstraZeneca has a 60-year history in…
July 14, 2017
For us at Integra Systems, synchronicity was achieved when we hit on the concept of new range of sit-stand office desks, which developed into the WorkSmart Collection of BioSmart and AeroSmart workstation solutions. Fourteen prototypes and a lot of mental and physical muscle later, we’ve got a story to tell about how our company transitioned from creating innovative products for other businesses, to devising our own intellectual property under the subsidiary company Integra TransForm. We were familiar with the sit-stand workplace trend sweeping the globe – we’d been asked to produce an industrial sit-stand solution for a client’s assembly line, using Linak actuators, which we consider to be the best available. From a technical point of view, we already understood how the actuators worked, giving us a leg-up to create a new kind of desk in our own unique vision. But that wasn’t…
July 14, 2017
One of Europe’s top five tool manufacturers, Fanar is known for uncompromising quality. The company supplies a wide range of tools for threading, drilling, milling and turning, specialising in shank tools for machining holes. Fanar’s global customer network encompasses the automotive, aerospace, medical and home appliances industries, among others. Fanar has always invested in technology and machine tools. In 2016 Fanar realised that if it was going to remain ahead in the market it needed to improve the production time for manufacturing complex cutting tools. Dariusz Ptaszkiewicz, Technical Director at Fanar said: “In the era of eBay people are accustomed to products delivered within two to three days. This mindset can be challenging when customers expect the same service when purchasing specialist cutting tools. We needed to find a way to meet customers’ expectations without compromising on quality. “The more complex the tool, the longer it takes to produce and may require several machines and different set-ups as part of the grinding process. This process can be quite…
July 7, 2017
Me3D was founded in late 2013 and originally it was just three old university friends tinkering in the garage. We were trying to figure out how to show everyone the incredible possibilities of 3D printing. Me3D set out with the goal of designing the world’s best educational 3D printer, the Me2. Today, we have launched a ground-breaking program, Seed3D, which helps Australian schools to ride the massive wave of growth in 3D printing and we are going to make sure this technology ends up in the hands of every kid, as early as possible. We are quickly expanding throughout the school networks – we’re already in more than 200 schools and have reached more than 120,000 students and you’ll find our printers all across the world. We’re establishing an exceptional reputation for being an inspiring company, and I credit being in Wollongong as integral to the…
July 7, 2017
As one of Australia’s longest-established manufacturing businesses, Sutton Tools is no stranger to being recognised for its achievements. The latest of these are the company’s induction to the prestigious 2017 Victorian Manufacturing Hall of Fame, and the 2017 “Manufacturer of The Year: Large Business” award. The awards were presented recently at the Manufacturing Hall of Fame 2017 Gala Dinner and Awards Ceremony, held in Melbourne on 9 May by Business Victoria. The theme of ‘Growing Advanced Manufacturing’ recognised outstanding achievements by Victorian businesses and individuals who uphold a high standard of excellence in Victorian manufacturing. “The awards were unexpected,” said Sutton Tools’ Managing Director Peter Sutton. “We were incredibly proud and honoured to receive them on behalf of every Sutton Tools staff member who has contributed so much to our successes of today.” A century of manufacturing achievement William Henry Sutton’s journey of entrepreneurial enterprise is typical of many skilled early Australian immigrants. Moreover, he achieved success while maintaining family management of a business that has grown and…
July 7, 2017
Each of the hydraulic rams (Y1 and Y2 axis) are synchronised via the CNC controller to allow for absolute precise delivery of pressure for your bending job – regardless of where you are bending across the bed. Bending performance will be equally as good at either end of the bed, as it will be for dead centre, allowing for tooling setups along the bed for more efficient processing of any multi-bend, multi-angle work. Another advantage of a CNC press brake is their extreme accuracy in terms of delivery of bending force. CNC press brakes are inherently much more power efficient than the “always 100% on” force delivery from a torsion bar press brake. With the skyrocketing costs of energy in Australia, this can remove significant costs from a company’s power bills and increase its bottom line. Yawei has always supplied an entry-level CNC synchronised press brake, and Applied Machinery has been providing Yawei’s PBH series of high-level…
July 7, 2017
The quest for reducing levels of power consumption in the global metal cutting sector is not a new trend; today it has become an essential technical requirement. Industry’s greater understanding of its environmental protection and sustainability responsibilities has ensured the development of processes, materials and machines that significantly reduce power consumption during machining operations. In addition to ensuring more efficient machining strategies, when compared to their heavy-duty predecessors, modern machining centres require less power while delivering improved performance capabilities. Previously, a typical production process was divided into primary and final cutting tasks that were performed on two machines. The first powerful machine removed most of the stock, and a more precise procedure was then used to achieve the final required shape and to create the necessary surface finish. Today, a single process often achieves these results in half the time.…
June 30, 2017
Thermo-plastic injection moulding is used for large-scale mass production of a wide range of mass-produced items, from plastic car parts, homewares and furniture, medical parts, electrical tool cases, toothbrushes, toys, caps, pipes and grommets – to name just a few. The processes used for injection moulding have a direct bearing on productivity and the quality of the end product. Challenges faced by moulders and mould-makers include guarding against warping, the appearance of flow lines, sink marks, the occurrence of vacuum voids, burn marks, jetting and flash and where uneven cooling occurs, thermal stresses in particular sections can reduce tool life. Any of these issues can result in losses through rejects, part-failure and recalls. However, 3D printing with metals could have a revolutionary impact on the industry, through the design and production of conformal cooling inserts. Why is conformal cooling considered such a game changer? Put simply, conformal cooling makes use of cooling lines that follow the geometry of the part including curves allowing for uniform cooling providing better product outcomes while…
June 30, 2017
This can be remedied by using structural parts for machinery that are made of lightweight fibre-reinforced materials. This entails mastering some serious obstacles, as evidenced by an as-yet-uncompleted research project at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology (IPT) in Aachen, Germany, which will also be on show at the EMO 2017 trade fair in Hannover . CFRP replaces steel for enhanced dynamics The researchers in Aachen usually adopt a holistic approach to optimising designs. In other words: they consider the machine’s design as a coherent whole, thus also including the development of important drive elements in the machine tool. They have currently joined forces with Magdeburg-based machine tool manufacturer MAP Werkzeugmaschinen to examine how an innovative machine component for vertical movements (Z-axis) made of carbon-fibre-reinforced plastic (CFRP) behaves in a machine tool and how the Z-slide can be optimised. “We began development work on the CFRP slide in…
June 16, 2017
In April and May, over two stages, more than 10,000 sqm of “smart” Australian-made geotextile liner was installed in a Queensland coal seam gas evaporation pond. The non-woven, polyethylene terephthalate (PET) geotextile, made by Geofabrics Australasia, was a first, in a number of respects. It was coated with a graphene-based conductive coating named imgne X3, produced by Imagine Intelligent Materials. The liner is able to “self-report” in the case of even a small hole being sprung. (Before a coal seam gas evaporation pond can be commissioned, leaks have to be identified and fixed, to prevent leakage of toxic leachate into groundwater.) Graphene – the “wonder material” one-third of a nanometre thick – has been a source of much hype in recent years, but has currently delivered few breakthroughs outside laboratories. Despite exciting results in scientific journals, graphene has not as yet delivered fantastic wealth to those at the commercial end of things. “We…
