At family-owned Reil Industrial Enterprises, the aerospace industry is in the blood. Before founding Reil in 1965, current owner William H. Reil worked at Aero Industries as did his father some 50 years ago. Today, the family's business, which is run by both William Reil, Sr. and William Reil, Jr., is known for machining and assembling high-quality, tight-tolerance aerospace components requiring very different methodologies than a high-production shop.
"The parts we typically produce are one-offs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, so the risk is very high," says Bill Reil, Sr. Combine that with the fact that the industry is cyclical with bad times occurring every three to four years within a decade and it's clear how exacting your processes have to be to succeed in the aerospace marketplace.
Reil's expertise led MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates' MD Robotics group, the developer of the original Canadarm robotic technology, to turn to the company for help in producing the space shuttle's 50-foot long orbital boom sensor system (OBSS).
The OBSS will be placed on the shuttle Discovery. Once the shuttle is in orbit, a robot arm, which is on the opposite side of the orbiter's payload bay, will maneuver the inspection boom to look for the kind of damage that led to the Columbia space shuttle disaster in 2003. The boom is attached to the end of the robotic arm in orbit, nearly doubling its length. A suite of sensors, cameras and a laser ranging system sit on the end of the boom and can be used by the Discovery crew to scan the orbiter's underbelly for cracked or broken tile or other damage.
The boom consists of over 100 different detail parts such as housings, trays, brackets, bolts, tethers, cleats, and other components, as well as three different 12 in. diameter tubular sections-the forward section, at 40 in. is where all the electronics are stored; the mid-section at 40 in. which is fracture critical as it carries the most stress; and the aft section at 96 in. housing all the cameras and sensors.
Reil supervised all of this-from machining of all components through final assembly-four times over. First an engineering model is built, then two flight models and then the final boom. All four were built from scratch within a year with design changes occurring throughout production.
"This is our value-add," says Bill Reil, Jr. "At any one time there were at least five to six MDA engineers on our floor and we incorporated every single change they made into our process immediately."
Every component involved in this project had both critical tolerances-often in the plus or minus .0003 in. range-as well as critical finish requirements. Also, a cotton glove inspection is run on every part to ensure there is nothing on any of the pieces that could catch and snag a space suit.
"Obviously, there is much at stake in a program like this," says Bill Reil, Sr. "We check all of our machines to make sure these components are machined on the most highly calibrated equipment and we put our best team and tooling on the project."
In this case, the team was headed by machinist Adam Peek-Blair and he came to rely on Seco Tools Canada Inc., Milton, ON (carboloy.com).
According to Peek-Blair, "For the OBSS, we are basically looking at a couple different materials to produce all of the components; 7075 aluminum for most of the work as well as titanium for some of the components. The amazing thing I found was that I was able to rely upon only two types of tools to accomplish the majority of the work-Seco's button cutters with a Minimaster long reach for rapid material removal and the NanoTurbo with the Combimaster system for cleaning out thin corners and machining any rough spots."
The aluminum for the OBSS componentry arrived on the floor in solid block form. For example, the forward assembly tray piece is about 70 in. long x 20 in. across. This tray fits inside the OBSS tube and in conjunction with the ISA1 piece, is designed to hold all the cameras and electrical equipment. The first machining operation involved the roughing out of the stock to a certain thickness as indicated by engineering prints. There were very long plates to be cut out-about 36 pockets in total ranging in size from 3 in. to 6 in. long by 12 in. across. "For this I just want to get rid of as much material as fast as possible," says Peek-Blair. "And the 1.0 in. button cutter T50M grade insert was perfect for that-it's a roughing cutter in my opinion."
Cutting at a .125 in. depth of cut at 120 ipm and running the machine at 7,000 to 8,000 rpm, Peek-Blair was able to rough out the entire block in about two hours.
At this point, Peek-Blair went in with Nano Turbo using 1/2 in. and 3/8 in. button cutters to round out the corners and to finish the walls of the pockets, which are only about .08 in. thick requiring very light, super fast cuts. "The key is to use light machining parameters, light edge cutting and not to put any pressure on the parts. It's the super positive cutting edge of the Nano Turbo that makes it so perfect for this operation. The feed rate and rpm allowed us to get a good finish, even on these extremely thin walls."
The ISA1 piece was even trickier-it consists of many long reach components, which house the OBSS electrical equipment. The first machining operation involved the roughing out of the stock to the thickness indicated in the engineering prints. This initial operation requires the hogging out of quite a lot of material at one time-up to a 7 in. deep plunge. Peek-Blair relied on the Seco Combimaster toolholding system, which provides unmatched rigidity during machining employing XOMX Series F40 grade inserts to provide a very high metal removal rate. "There were areas where we had to go 7 in. deep and get to these little pockets right up against a long straight wall. With the Combimaster tool, it was fantastic. The vibration was completely dampened and I can't complain about the finish at all."
Because the operation involved pockets, helical interpolation was the employed methodology. "Anytime we could start outside of the material, we would," says Peek-Blair, "but the majority of the operation required high feed ramping inside the piece where we used the 1.5 in. Nano Turbomills with 62470 inserts and a Combimaster shank featuring an Rn connection. Plunging would have removed more material faster, but for this application it would have put too much force on the setup and there are very strict requirements on how much you can cut into a piece before putting too much stress on the material and compromising its quality."
On the OBSS, all tethers, cleats, brackets, bolts and some housings are produced from titanium. The surface finish of these parts is crucial as they cannot contain any burrs or rough spots that could potentially snag an astronauts glove or clothing. The titanium also arrived at the shop as a solid block.
For a housing component, the first operation required roughing deep pockets out of the solid block. This was Peek-Blair's first experience in working with titanium and he started out by hogging out the material for the inside pockets with a 2 in. high feed insert with a trigon radius. At a .0003 in. depth of cut he was able to get about one hour of life per insert. "I was pleased with this tool," says Peek-Blair. "The only limitation is that it absolutely has to be fully engaged in the material or it will not last long-the angle of the insert has to be more than 70? at entry."
During this project, Peek-Blair was introduced to Jabro Tools, which Seco had purchased in 2001. When it came to contouring, Peek-Blair found with Jabro endmills and Seco's 12mm ballnose cutters, that he was able to achieve feed rates up to 80-90 ipm at 4,500 rpm, which is almost unheard of in titanium.    
More than anything, employing the Seco tooling on this program provided Reil with a high level of reliability. "You cannot take the machining of any of these parts for granted. Seco has provided us the tools and the support that allow us to deliver the quality projects that customers like NASA come to expect" says Bill Reil, Jr.

This article was supplied by Seco Tools Canada Inc., Milton, ON.

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