Aerospace Manufacturing previews some of the exhibitors at this year’s Advanced Engineering 2023, being held from November 1-2 at the NEC, Birmingham.

We begin our roundup of exhibitors at Advanced Engineering UK with Group Rhodes (stand Q122). The company will be showcasing its industry-leading innovations in Superplastic Forming and Diffusion Bonding. The Group will also highlight its extensive range of state-of-the-art machinery for hot and cold forming of metals and composites, and complete turnkey solutions for specialised machinery within the aerospace industry.

Group Rhodes has extensive capabilities including the design, development and manufacture of bespoke equipment and complete turnkey solutions. The main trading divisions of the Group consist of Rhodes Interform, Craven Fawcett, and Hallamshire Engineering Services. Rhodes is celebrating its 200th anniversary next year, and it is still proud to nurture a dedicated workforce in a traditional yet dynamic manufacturing environment.

Moving on, XYZ Machine Tools (stand N140) will have three machines on display at the show. A RLX 425 lathe, a RMX 3500 bed mill and a 750 TMC machining centre. All feature XYZ’s ProtoTRAK Control said to be the simplest CNC on the market by the company.

The 750 TMC (Toolroom Machining Centre) features an enclosed bed mill with automatic tool changer and is considered one of the best machines for one off and small batch production.

XYZ’s range of RMX bed mills are used across UK industry. There are four in XYZ’s range from the RMX 2500 to the RMX 5000. Each bed mill is perfect for low volume production for milling or turning, and can produce pockets, profiles, slots, and more. XYZ’s range of Proturn lathes features the RLX touchscreen ProtoTRAK control. These are also ideal for one off and low volume production. The RLX 425 is available as a 1.25m and 2m gap bed lathe with a swing over bed of 480mm and spindle bore of 80mm. Maximum spindle speed is 2,500rpm.

Another composite exhibitor is CompoTech (stand U140), who will be promoting its latest advanced composite component design and bespoke automated production technologies at the show.

The focus this year is on the recent business expansion into automated winding machine design and production, using expertise gained from nearly 30 years developing in-house manufacturing machines for the company’s innovative carbon fibre winding technologies.

CompoTech is now able to provide complete solutions from carbon fibre composite component design, prototyping and part production to process installation of custom-built ‘turnkey’ automated fibre winding and filament placement machines. 

The company has also invested in additional resources and formed links with specialist robotics and software supply partners to enable it to custom design and produce in-house automated winding machines for manufacturers looking to invest in automated, high performance carbon composite component production capabilities.

Also at the NEC, Trumpf (stand K165) will be highlighting the flexibility of its laser technology. Trumpf offers an extensive range of laser systems combined with global application consultancy, integration support and comprehensive after-sales service. At this year’s show, the company will emphasise its expertise in e-mobility and aerospace with special focus on applications in satellite, rocket and engine production.

From electrode production to the finished battery pack, Trumpf serves the entire process chain in battery production. In the past fiscal year alone, this high-tech company has sold more than one thousand lasers for battery production. Trumpf also applies its laser technology for laser metal fusion (LMF) and laser metal deposition (LMD). Visitors will also learn how the company has combined two products: it’s a new TruPrint 5000 with the TruDisk 1020 laser, to create the TruPrint Green Series. This combination of green laser and additive manufacturing makes it possible to 3D print highly- reflective materials, such as copper, copper alloys and precision metals.

Also at the show, The Society for the Advancement of Material and Process Engineering (SAMPE) will host the final of its building competition. The contest aims to provide a practical composite engineering challenge through Young Engineers and Students (YES), where the entrants will be challenged to create a suitable structure and display it at the show.

This year, each team must apply their composites knowledge and creativity to design and construct a bridge capable of spanning a one metre gap while resisting simple weights. All teams will receive a sustainable composite material kit supplied by sponsors.

Finally, CGTech (stand N112) will exhibit Vericut 9.4 at Advanced Engineering. Vericut is the world’s leading CNC simulation software. The latest version focuses on increased connectivity between the actual machine and the virtual simulation.

The new CNC Machine Monitoring module connects the software directly to CNC machines and streams data to allow users to monitor what their machines are doing on the shopfloor, live in real-time. Users can see which NC program or subroutine is running, monitor machine motions and spindle activity, see if overrides have been applied to spindle or feedrates, identify when machining has been interrupted by emergency stops or taken out of productive cycle mode, and more, all within Vericut.

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