City company launches world’s first Robotics Grinding for large castings

Grind Master: First of its kind machine for automatic fettling and precision grinding of exotic material castings weighing upto 6 tons

Aurangabad:

In a rare feat, Grind Master Machines Pvt Ltd, Aurangabad has launched a first of its kind worldwide machine for Robotics Grinding of large castings. Grind Master ROBOFINISH team led by Sameer Kelkar, R&D head and architect of the ROBOFINISH Technology, conducted the research and development over four years resulting in an international project for deployment of this technology.

Giving more information, Kelkar said, Grind Master ROBOFINISH abilities to solve challenges with innovative breakthroughs in process and software were demonstrated through several R&D projects that were conducted between 2019 and 2021. The results from these finally gave both the foundry and grind master the confidence to build a full machine. This first of its kind machine for automatic fettling and precision grinding of exotic material castings weighing upto 6 tons. Grinding large castings has been a big hurdle. We have a lot of experience with small and medium sized castings and were confident of developing a solution for larger castings. We are thrilled to have succeeded where many other international companies had failed. Our ROBOFINISH team in particular Amol Ghule, Sohail Shaikh, Prashant Jadhav, Mahesh Kshirsagar, Swati Tekale, Sudeep Khadse, Anklesh Mohabe, Prajwal Mhaske and Onkar Kulkarni worked very hard to make this project a success.

Five patents filed

With five patents filed during the advancements made in process, software and machine design, the resulting product is a landmark in development of robotic machining.

Robotic fettling gives tremendous precision

Robotic grinding-fettling gives tremendous improvements in the consistency and completeness of fettling. Manual operations are subject to numerous variations through the days, weeks and months of the year since different operators work in different styles. Multiple operators work on one component leading to handling damages. Manually operated cutting tools invariably cause scratch marks and dents, which are a major cause for the rejection of castings.