Robotic finishing process – An extrusion die case study

Abstract Current automated finishing techniques are almost not applicable on parts with free form surfaces and function relevant edges, as commonly found in moulds and dies. The finishing of these tools has to be done predominantly manually. In this paper a robot integrated finishing process is presented and the essay focuses on the automated finishing of a real extrusion die. Integrated into the six-axis robot, a pneumatic compliant spindle has been adopted in order to deburr and grind the large spectrum of free-form topographies. Initial experiments verified the predictability of generated surface qualities in dependency of identified main process parameters. In sequence, based on an empiric parameters model, an extrusion die was automatically finished resulting in superior surface quality. Furthermore, evaluations were conducted to quantify the existing robot accuracy issues during the experiments.