The main manufacturers of aluminium wheels are exploring alternative systems aiming at saving material, reducing weight, increasing the mechanical resistance and having the possibility to recover the wheel after a crash. The ideal process to achieve these goals is flowforming.
By flowforming forged, or low pressure cast workpieces, weight reductions of about 25% can be achieved. This is due to the fact that the flowforming process, apart from allowing to obtain different thicknesses on the flange profile, produces a compactness of the grain structure, thereby improving its mechanical properties.
By using flowforming processes, it is possible to reduce the scrap material resulting from machining processes, thus reaching reductions in unit production costs as well as the number of defective parts during the manufacturing process.
This process is undertaken with the family of DENN vertical flowforming lathes LW3-180 and 245 CNC, which are fitted with three rollers and three independent working carriages specifically engineered for this application.
The LW3 machines are fitted with the DENN CAD-CAM, which is the most powerful graphic programming software available on the market. Its quick and intuitive use enables to program fast and accurately any wheel profile without interrupting series production.
More information in www.denn.es
