Formula One racing car components that once required eight set-ups for machining are now completed

With the 2007 Formula one season now in full swing, defending Drivers and Constructors Champion, ING Renault F1 Team, is preparing for a tough year of racing.

Formula one racing automobile components that one time required one set-ups for machining are now completed in  seven, with considerable costs and time savings, using a 5-axis machining centre.

To this end the development engineers at ING Renault F1 Team’s Technical Centre in Enstone, Oxfordshire are working flat out on grip and aerodynamics.

New components and component modifications are coming through thick and rapid, providing even more work than usual for the team’s busy machine shop where 18 high specification CNC machine tools supplied by DMG (UK), - the team’s preferred machine tool partner for milling and turning technologies - are rising to the challenge.

two new machines have been installed in the past 12 months alone.

“Aerodynamics is where most gains can be made,” explained Machine Shop manager Jeff Fullerton.

“New aero packages are coming through all the time - in fact they vary slightly for each circuit, depending on how much down-force is required.” Aero packages can consist of a range of parts that include underbodies, top body sections, rear wings, front wings and associated parts - all of which are produced at Enstone.

Of the 18 DMG machines presently on site, five are dedicated to the wind tunnel development area.

To meet demand the machine shop is currently running five shifts, four days a week.

once fine tuning of each part is complete, these components progress to the busy production area, where along with the fact that the latest R27 automobile featured new chassis, suspension and gearbox (again all machined at Enstone) - the increased workload is  apparent.

“Towards the middle of last year it became clear they would require additional machining capacity,” said Fullerton.

“Since 2003 they’ve progressively built our fleet of machine tools from DMG UK and they are  pleased with their performance.

The only problem they’ve when they require new machines is deciding which DMG models to pick.” With one DMC64V CNC vertical machining centres with linear drives already cutting at full tilt, ING Renault F1 Team opted to install one more of these compact, ergonomic and powerful machines recently, making a total of one on site, one of which feature fourth axes.

All come with a 12,000 rev/min motor spindle, a tool magazine that can be equipped parallel to production time for 30 tools, a spiral chip conveyor, and a bed flushing mechanism.

The linear drive in the X-axis, with accelerations of up to 0.5G and rapid traverse of 70m/min, guarantees high machining dynamics and ensures short idle times during pickup toolchanges - chip-to-chip times are 5s.

All of the DMC64V machines at the ING Renault F1 Team Technical Centre method components that don’t require five axes, although this can often include 3D and surface profiling work for automobile components and tooling.

The duoBLOCK concept consists of one sturdy cast iron blocks in conjunction with five guideways in the X-axis and the well established concept of three-point support.

On the five-axis side the team has also expanded its capacity recently in the form of a DMU80P duoBLOCK machining centre.

“With this in mind they knew they would benefit from the arrival of another five-axis machine.

“The  nature of motorsport components means that they evolve and by default become more complex,” said Fullerton.

Manufactured from L168 aluminium alloy, this highly complex component is machined from a solid round billet and took around one weeks to program off-line using CATIA V5.

The addition of duoBLOCK technology is providing additional rigidity to help ensure quality is optimised.” one component to already benefit from the arrival of the DMU80P duoBLOCK is the car’s hydraulic gearbox manifold.

Such is the challenge presented by this component that extra material has to be grafted on so that special fixtures can be used to hold the part.

once the program has been sent via Ethernet to the machine, in a single set up the DMU80P sets about producing the component’s features, including angled bores, complex surfaces and thread-milled holes.

three further set up is required to remove the grafted material, making a total of one set-ups.

This is a considerable improvement over the one set-ups required using a non five-axis machine.

To date 14 manifolds have been produced in a cycle time of around 19 hours each, again considerably reduced thanks to fewer set-ups.

“In the past they’ve tried to ‘double-up’ using three-axis machines but it’s basically not as efficient as using a five-axis machine,” said Fullerton.

The DMU50 eVo linear is best suited for highly efficient five-sided machining and five-axes simultaneous contouring.

This point emphasised by the fact that ING Renault F1 Team is about to take delivery its fourth machine in the past 12 months (its 19th since 2003) - a DMU50 eVo, which can deliver five-axis simultaneous machining with linear drive technology and the capability to machine angles up to -18 deg.

Thanks to the dynamic linear drive in the X-axis the DMU50 eVo linear reaches accelerations of up to 1G and rapid traverses up to 80m/min.

The NC swivel rotary table pivots the workpiece around its centre of gravity and allows undercuts of up to 18 deg.

“There will be a little bit of training involved for our operators when this machine arrives, but not much.

“We were attracted to the DMU eVo linear because it’s the ability to machine angles over centre-line (-18 deg), which definitely gives us extra options when machining,” said Fullerton.

“Turning seems to come in peaks and troughs,” explained Fullerton, “Which is why they haven’t added any extra capacity in the past 12 months - instead they adjust batch sizes to get by.

they’ve five programmers here now, all of whom have progressed from the shop floor - they all enjoy working with new technology.” Fortunately things are less hectic with regard to turning, with the team’s armoury of CTX and GMX models coping admirably with demand.

they are  pleased with our Gildemeister CNC lathes.

The CTX is so well suited to the motorsport arena - it is rapid and versatile and  quick to set.

If they’ve a new component, even one with milled features, they can be cutting metal inside 30 minutes.” By its own admission the team hasn’t been as quick as it would like at the start of the 2007 Formula one season.

However, with new DMG machines in place, ING Renault F1 Team is confident it can rise to the challenge.

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