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Conquering the Complexities of Titanium
Alcoa material and machining expertise expands its aerospace market
- By Canadian Metalworking
- November 1, 2016
- Article
- Metalworking
Supplying the titanium aerospace market requires continuous improvement to meet customer demands for service, quality, delivery, and cost. Careful management and integration of quality people and progressive processes and technologies are key to securing positions within the OEM supply chains.
“Aircraft OEMs are looking for ways to simplify their supply chains. They want to work with high-performing, vertically integrated suppliers,” said Christian Ouimet, managing director of Alcoa’s facility in Laval, Quebec.
Alcoa provides multimaterial lightweight metals, technology, engineering, and manufacturing services for companies across the globe. In 2015 the company purchased the Laval manufacturing facility as part of its acquisition of RTI International Metals.
With RTI, Alcoa added the capability to produce large, complex, and finished titanium aerospace components, viewed as the fastest-growing aerospace metal, to its product offerings without having to outsource any part of the process.
Machining Titanium
The Laval facility became part of the Alcoa Titanium & Engineered Products (ATEP) business unit, which supplies advanced titanium and other specialty metals, products, and services to the commercial aerospace, defence, and oil and gas markets. ATEP Laval specializes in the precision machining and assembly of complex titanium aircraft components, such as seat tracks, body chords, spars, doorframes, and wing attachments, for OEMs including Airbus, Boeing, and Bombardier.
Due to its unique material properties, titanium is widely recognized as a material that is challenging to machine cost-effectively. However, ATEP Laval identified titanium-engineered products as a significant growth market more than a decade ago and has been producing titanium components since then.
“Early machine tool investments helped us break ground within the titanium market, but increasing customer demands for cost reductions and faster delivery soon required us to take a new approach to titanium machining,” said Ouimet. “General-purpose machine platforms were unable to provide the rigidity, flexibility, or control necessary to fully optimize our processes. The Makino T-Series [horizontal machining centres] provided us with a purpose-built solution for titanium that has enabled us to reduce cycle times by more than 60 per cent while simultaneously reducing tool costs by 30 per cent or more.”
Purpose-built Equipment
Prior to its strategic pivot toward titanium-engineered products, the Laval facility primarily focused on the machining of large aluminum structural components for aircraft. Investments in several Makino MAG-Series HMCs had been made to mirror the type of aluminum machining technology OEMs use. So when ATEP Laval began exploring titanium machining technologies, its familiarity with brand led the company to explore Makino further.
“Around this time period, Makino was launching its first T-Series machine, the T4,” said Christian Perry, CNC programmer team leader, technical services, at ATEP Laval. “They invited us to visit their manufacturing facility in Japan to see how the machine was designed and built, which was an eye-opening experience. The cutting demonstrations featured parts similar to those we were producing, and the quality was outstanding.”
After returning from Japan, ATEP Laval began working with the OEM to perform a series of test cuts on the T4 using two of its production applications. Research engineers from both companies worked side by side in Makino’s Mason, Ohio, facility to optimize processing methods and explore the features of the machine. Together, they produced a stable process that was nearly three times faster than the company’s previous methods.
ATEP Laval’s selection of machine suppliers involved a close evaluation of full life cycle costs amortized over the duration of the purchasing contract. During testing the company determined that investing in the T4 would offset costs while maintaining requirements for quality and delivery. According to Christian Sauvé, vice president and general manager, engineered products, ATEP, the benefits of acquiring a machine that could improve processes and avoid non-quality costs outweighed the burdens of the long-term investment.
“Working closely with Makino’s titanium research and development team gave us confidence in the abilities of the equipment to deliver on the promises of performance that we make to our customers. The test procedures were a good exercise in demonstrating the capabilities of the equipment and showed how we could gain a clear return on investment,” he said.
Since its initial acquisition of the machines, the Laval facility has expanded its titanium machining investments with a second T4 and a smaller T2 model. The company is also awaiting a late-2016 delivery of the first T5 machine to support production of large titanium doorframe components.
Value-Added Benefits
“ATEP is a fully integrated supplier of titanium and other specialty metals products, with the capabilities to deliver from raw material to finished part,” said Sauvé. “Customers that are consolidating their supply chains will bring us parts that they have been struggling with to get consistent quality requirements. We’ve been very successful at getting good parts right from the beginning. It’s a mix of our engineering approach, having a solid team, and investing in the right equipment to face the challenge and deliver a good product.”
“A lot of manufacturers claim they can machine titanium, but to understand how it behaves and how to efficiently machine the material is something completely different,” said Louis Marc Pinard, director, strategic planning and business development at ATEP Laval. “That’s where we make a difference. We work with titanium from raw material to finished part and understand the material intimately.”
ATEP Laval has one of Alcoa’s largest and most extensive machining operations. It shares knowledge and efficiencies with other Alcoa facilities, enhancing the company’s overall titanium machining capabilities. Alcoa’s aerospace businesses, including ATEP Laval, will soon become part of a separate Alcoa manufacturing company, Arconic. The shift is expected to be complete by the end of this year.
Alcoa, 450-786-2001, www.alcoa.com
Makino, 513-573-7200, www.makino.com
Changing from ATEP Laval to Arconic
Originally founded in Saint-Léonard, Quebec, as Claro Precision in 1966, ATEP Laval possesses a history in the manufacturing, assembly, and finishing of aerospace components. These capabilities expanded in 2004, when RTI International Metals, a producer of titanium mill products and fabricated metal components for the global market, acquired the company. As part of RTI, the company grew its market share in producing titanium and other specialty metals products and services for the commercial aerospace, defence, oil and gas, and medical products markets. The company’s success led to the construction of a new, expanded machining facility in Laval.
Alcoa acquired RTI in 2015 to expand its manufacturing technologies and materials capabilities for aerospace and other advanced industries.
Laval, part of the Alcoa Titanium & Engineered Products (ATEP) business unit, is one of five ATEP machining and extruding facilities located in three countries.
ATEP’s 180,000-square-foot facility and its 290-plus team members were named an Alcoa “Machining Center of Excellence” for exceptional performance in the precision machining and assembly of titanium, aluminum, and other specialty metal parts and components, and for providing machining expertise and support to other business units. Components produced at ATEP Laval fly on the world’s most advanced aerospace platforms, including the Boeing 787, Airbus A350, and Bombardier C series.
Alcoa anticipates that its separation into two publicly traded companies will be completed by the end of 2016. The upstream company will operate under the Alcoa name; Alcoa’s aerospace businesses, which include ATEP Laval, will form part of Arconic, the value-add company that will manufacture high-performance, multimaterial products for companies in growth markets, including aerospace.
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