Swaging of tie-rod tubes
An investment in the quality and variety of our tie-rods
Marco Reitinger, 31.08.2023
In the dynamic world of the aerospace industry we constantly evolve to meet the growing demands of our customers. The increasing complexity of modern aircraft requires advanced solutions and increased manufacturing capacity. With this goal in mind, we decided to procure a new HMP-R5 rotary swaging machine in October 2022.
The ability to handle complex development projects requires modern machining centres and these were complemented by the new tube swaging line. The machine has hydraulic drives and clamping capabilities. By significantly increasing the variety of parameters during forming (hammer jaw infeed, hammer jaw frequency, clamping pressure, hammer jaw rotation, etc.), much more diverse geometries can be produced at very high quality and high productivity.
One of the first new projects to be implemented on this system is the forming of steel tubes for the landing flap control system of a business jet OEM.
The biggest challenges in this project were the swaging of steel including it’s complex geometry with a large swaged length and a very high swaging ratio. This can now be realised economically on the new machine with high surface qualities and tight run out tolerances.
In line with our brand values of precise, constructive and individual, we want to push our capabilities on the machine even further in the future and produce even more complex products. With an adjustment of the hammer jaw rotation, it is possible to swage square profiles onto the tubes, allowing fork ends to be integrated directly. When space is tight on the aircraft, the grooving process can be used to form the material in exactly the right places. For many structural applications it is necessary to install fixed ends (non-adjustable connection ends). In the future, these will be integrated directly into the tube on our new machine.
We are proud of establishing the new rotary swaging machine in our company and looking forward to being able to carry out exciting tasks efficiently and precisely in order to be able to offer our customers high quality, tailor-made solutions.