AU Class
AU Class
class - AU

Machining Processes for High-Temperature Aerospace Alloys

Share this class

Description

The aerospace industry has always necessitated a high degree of precision-be that in the aerofoil designs of the wings or the complex electronics on board. Designs may be as detailed as possible, but these ideas need to be accurate when they become a reality. This class will provide insight into how certain aerospace parts are manufactured, such as bladed disks (blisks) for a turbine. Blisks often need to be machined near perfectly, as any change in geometry has the chance to drastically reduce the fuel efficiency of an entire system. They are also usually created from incredibly strong materials like titanium or Inconel-further increasing the difficulty of manufacture. The Autodesk Advanced Consulting Team in Birmingham, United Kingdom, has a lot of experience with this sort of process, working with a wide variety of customers within the industry. We'll share some of the experiences we have encountered over recent years and how their related engineering challenges were overcome.

Key Learnings

  • Find out about the work of the Autodesk Advanced Consulting Team based in Birmingham, England
  • See how Autodesk software can be combined together to solve complex engineering problems
  • Learn about subtractive manufacturing processes from real-world industrial examples
  • Explore the types of manufacturing challenges present in the aerospace industry

Speakers

  • Christopher Wade
    Hello! I’m Chris, a keen badminton and squash player. But outside of that I’m a Technical Consultant in the Manufacturing Industry Futures team of Autodesk Research. I’ve worked at the Birmingham, UK branch intermittently since 2012 – initially alongside studying for my Masters Degree in Integrated Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, but full-time since I graduated in 2015. My current role necessitates a wide-ranging skill-set, such as knowledge of programming and manufacturing best practices. These are used to concoct bespoke solutions for the problems presented by our various customers or to push the boundaries of what manufacturing can achieve.
  • James Donnelly
    Hey. I’m James, a consultant working within the Autodesk Advanced Consulting team. I joined the company in 2014, working in the Advanced Manufacturing Facility as a 5-Axis Machinist before moving internally to the Consulting team in March of this year. Prior to my career at Autodesk, I started my working life as a CNC Milling Apprentice at a small engineering company, using Autodesk products but as a customer. During my time at my previous company, I completed firstly a Foundation Degree, and then a Bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering Systems at Aston University. My current role within the Autodesk Advanced Consulting team requires me to use the skills I already possessed, as well as adapt to new and cutting edge technologies - allowing me to provide detailed solutions for customers.
Video Player is loading.
Current Time 0:00
Duration 58:06
Loaded: 0.29%
Stream Type LIVE
Remaining Time 58:06
 
1x
  • Chapters
  • descriptions off, selected
  • en (Main), selected
Transcript

CHRIS WADE: Thank you for joining us so early after the party last night. I know it was probably a struggle for some of you getting up. Thank you for joining our talk, which is on machining processes for high-temperature aerospace alloys. And hopefully we've got a really informative talk for you here today. We're going to start off with what I, personally, think is the best looking slide of the bunch.

So let me introduce myself. Oh yeah, just a note. Sorry, James didn't provide a picture in time so I had to make do. So let me introduce myself. I'm Chris. I work as part of Autodesk Advanced Consulting, which is a small subdivision within Autodesk. And I've been working as part of Autodesk on and off since 2012. So they first invited me in as a placement student while I was at university, and then I got invited back for a permanent job before moving into the advanced consulting team.

JAMES DONNELLY: And I'm James. I've worked for-- well, started Dalcom about three years ago in the [INAUDIBLE] machine and then moved into the Advanced Consulting team about five months ago.

CHRIS WADE: So just a little rundown of what we're going to be talking about today. So I know Autodesk Advanced Consulting isn't that widely known within Autodesk or even outside of it. So I'm going to give you a quick overview of who we are. Then I'm going to go through the types of materials that you might find in the aerospace industry and what the applications for those might be before going into some of their particular properties that make them useful in certain applications.

And then James is going to take over and go through some of the machining trials which we did in our advanced manufacturing facility in Birmingham in the UK, testing these materials and why you might want to machine them in certain ways. And then I'm going to go through two case studies, which we've got projects that we've done for a customer, going through, overall, the workflow of the project, and then takeaways that you can possibly use in your own related or maybe even unrelated projects. And then James has a project that he's working on at the moment, his little baby, so he's going to go through that in a little bit of detail with you.

So first of all, who are we? And I'm sure many of you after the party last night were lying awake thinking of this, but folks in specifically on Autodesk Advanced Consulting. We are, as I said, a small subdivision within Autodesk focused on completing work for customers and also research work internally in a variety of different industries and using a variety of different techniques. So from generative design, to factory automation, to what we focus on, which is subtractive manufacturing.

And without further ado, let's get underway. So materials in the aerospace industry-- I've broken this down into four sections. So first of all, I'm going to be going through why certain materials are used and two main groups of materials within the aerospace industry. Then I'm going to focus on a particular group that the materials which need to resist high forces and high temperatures. And I'm going to go through superalloys and why they might be used for that application and what makes them so super.

Then I'm going to go to them going to be going through their properties and what makes them difficult to machine or different to machine. So focusing, in particular, on commercial aircraft within the aerospace industry, because the aerospace industry encompasses commercial aircraft, military aircraft, and also spacecraft. And so we're focusing on commercial aircraft because we have a lot of experience with that and it's a little bit easier to talk about.

So I've broken down materials into two main groups as I see them. You've got parts and materials which have a focus on being lightweight to reduce the amount of lift required to get an aircraft into the air, reduce the amount of fuel. And this might be parts in the wing, parts in the fuselage, and there's been lots of good talks this week about weight reduction techniques, like through generative design or through different manufacturing techniques.

But today, we're going to be focusing on a different group of materials. And this is materials such as those in the engine that need to constantly withstand these high forces and keep their strength, keep their shape. And certain materials that are able to deal with this include high nickel-content steels and certain titanium alloys. So the nickel-content steels might be something like Inconel or Waspaloy, and titanium alloys, like titanium 6-4 is what we're going to be covering today.

And some of these alloys can be classified as superalloys. And a superalloy is just a generic term for an alloy, which excels in two or more criteria. So in this case, maybe it's incredibly strong and able to resist high forces and also able to resist incredibly high temperatures. And that would make it suitable for this application and a superalloy.

And within an alloy-- just going back to basics now-- within an alloy, you have an arrangement of the metal atoms. And these can form a crystalline structure, and it's the arrangement of this structure within the alloy that can give it its strength. So, for example, here, if you take a really close look at a cross-section of something like Inconel, you have a regular arrangement of nickel and aluminum atoms within it. And it's this regular arrangement within the crystals and the way that the crystals interact with each other that can give these high-strength and high temperature-resistant properties.

But this internal structure can change based on the way an alloy is formed. So rather than just machining a block of the material from scratch that can produce a lot of waste or whatever, sometimes it goes through a forming process first, like forging or casting. And this is just to get into the rough shape so that there's less machining work that needs to be done. And so forging is essentially-- it dates back ages, back to the dark-- maybe not quite as far as the dinosaurs-- medieval times.

So imagine a blacksmith hammering a piece of chest armor into shape from just a sheet of metal. That's forging. It's applying a force to a material in order to bend it into a certain shape. And nowadays it's not a guy with a hammer, it's a big hydraulic press and some dies. And casting is where you would take an alloy, turn into a molten material, pour it into a cast, and then let it set, break the cast away, and then you have the rough shape.

And each of these forming processes has their drawbacks. So, for example, forging can introduce new stresses into the material, areas of weakness, especially if there's sharp edges, sharp angles. And casting essentially re-arranges this entire crystalline structure I was talking about. So if you've got a regular structure that's been created as part of the alloy, it just breaks it all down and then when it sets again, you don't exactly know how it's going to reform. So there could be inherent weaknesses in the material there.

And these hot processes also have another problem. So forging can be done hot or cold and casting, obviously hot. So when it sets, you can get this oxidized layer on the surface of the material, which is incredibly rough and difficult to machine, and requires a lot of effort to remove. But focusing more on the materials in general again. So Seco Tools have done a lot of work regarding the properties of certain materials and what affects their machinability. And they've broken this down into five different factors, which you can see here on the screen. And the material shown here is a high-grade steel.

So all of these five factors might change, depending on whether something is incredibly ductile or something's incredibly thermally conductive. It changes the way that you might approach machining. And comparing this steel to Inconel 718, which is a high nickel-content steel, and titanium 64 on the right-hand side, you can see first of all, one thing that I like to point out, is that Inconel and titanium actually have a lower hardness than this steel.

And that might surprise a lot of you because these superalloys and these titanium alloys are known for being incredibly hard and incredibly difficult to cut through. But they have a lower hardness on this scale. And the reason why they have the reputation of being hard is because of this second property in the top right, which is strain hardening. They have a higher resistance to local force, or also known as work hardening.

So hardness is essentially a measure of if you apply a force to something, how much it's going to compress. But as it compresses, this crystalline structure that I was talking about can rearrange and it can resist this force. So as you're applying the force, it can become harder and harder. And it's this threshold for hardening that gives Inconel and titanium 6-4 their reputation.

And the last property I'd like to draw your attention to is the lower heat conductivity in the bottom right. And you might be wondering how does heat conductivity affect the way you might machine something? It's not got anything to do with it. And I've got two videos on the next slide of very similar titanium alloys. One is titanium 64 and the other is a burn-resistant titanium. So the only difference is the burn-resistant titanium has a much lower heat conductivity, so it's less able to conduct heat away from the cuttings there.

And these properties-- I mean these videos-- are courtesy of the University of Birmingham, and I'd like to thank them for providing them. And if you can see the video on the left playing, you can see it's a nice smooth cut. These aren't ideal cutting conditions, because there's no coolant and there's nothing to break up the chips, nothing to cut the swarf so it's got this nesting effect. You can see it's cutting nice and smoothly, no real chatter on the surface, no changes in color, and it's smooth.

Whereas immediately on the right-hand side, you can see an indication of the buildup of heat in the swarf and in the cuttings zone. And this heat can change the properties of the material. Not only the material, but the properties of the tool itself, which can eventually lead to failure of the tool, which you see there. So nothing has changed apart from the conductivity. But the focus is on if any of these properties change, depending on the material, you need to change the approach. You have two similar approaches there, similar materials, only one property changed, you would need to change the approach.

If you don't change your approach to cutting these materials, you can get tool breakage like you saw there, or maybe on the lower end of the threshold you can get something like a bad surface finish, chatter on the surface. Maybe it's just pushing material around then cutting, or maybe other parts of the system breaking. So in the center you've got a collet here holding a tool. And what actually happened was this collet failed. It sheared right at the bottom of this thread. And it had a little crack here in the slot.

But this is a top-down photo of the shear looking down on the collet And you can see a little crack in the top right. You can see the start of the thread. But you can also see a good indication of what I was talking about before with the crystalline structure and the changes in tone. All of the breaks were between the crystals, which would cause this jagged surface leftover. Or even just something simple like excessive tool wear, which would just increase the cost of a project.

Or maybe even something catastrophic like this can happen. And the interesting thing is, this isn't even an exotic material. This is just standard tool steel. This is a steel which people might be used to cutting day in and day out. But if the approach is wrong, something like this can happen. So again, the approach needs to change based on the material. And even if you do get something on the lower end of the threshold, maybe the tool has overworn.

When it comes to part inspection, you'll realize the tool's worn too much more than you expected. It's geometrically out and it hasn't cut as deep as you thought it would. So you've got to go back. It increases the cost of the project. Or if you've got a bad surface finish, maybe arduous manual processes need to be used in order to smooth them up again, increasing the cost of the project.

And so I'd like to hand over to James now. He's going to go into a bit more detail about this. We've done some tests in our advanced manufacturing facility about just this very topic.

JAMES DONNELLY: OK, yeah. So I'm just going to show you a few slides with videos and some images. So we did some tests back in Birmingham with different materials to see how they acted under different cutting parameters. So these are the three main goals of our trials. So first, we wanted to see how the different materials acted in the different cutting parameters and what effect did the approach have on tool life and surface quality, as well as comparing the machinability of each material.

So the first of the three materials we used was EN24T steel. And this is a tempered steel with good machining characteristics. And its uses are found in aerospace and automotive parts as well as press tools for the tool and die industry. The second of the two material is titanium Ti6-4. Now, this is an aerospace alloy, which is harder to machine and that would be [INAUDIBLE] the EN34T steel. And its found in parts of the-- and prototypes of [INAUDIBLE] aerospace industry, as well as implants and prostheses. Now the third material is Inconel 718, and out of the three, this is probably the hardest to machine because of its work hardening characteristics as Chris showed in earlier slides.

And this material is also used in aerospace components as well as rocket and space application components. So the volume of material that we wanted to remove is shown there, so it's 100x25x18 mill. And what we're doing is using a 12 millimeter radius 1 end mill. This end mill has a Zeb Cob coat in which was supplied by SGX. It's a titanium alluminum nitride coating, and it's recommended for machining a varium range of materials with different hardness, so anything from cast irons to superalloys like Inconel 718. And this would be done on a Huron VX 12 milling machine, which is a flatbed three-axis milling machine.

So we tried two different methods of approach for machining that volume of material. The first onee's a traditional method. I call it a traditional method because it's that what would be used to machine a roughened area of material using [INAUDIBLE] cutter, adopting a large stepover and small stepdown, focusing a lot of the heat and the cutting forces on the tip of the tool. And the second method is one that would probably suit a high-temperature alloy. So this has a smaller stepover but a larger stepdown, utilizing the full flute of the cutter, spreading the heat from the tip to across the whole of the tool.

And it also takes less passes to remove the material, which is good for a material that work hardens, as the less times you have to cut it, the less chance you have of changing the properties of the material. Now as well as approach, we [INAUDIBLE] and the direction of cuts. Now on the screen you can say conventional and climb milling, both of which have their advantages in milling. But for this test, we chose climb milling. The reasons why were first, is bigger chips straightaway. So when climb milling, as soon as you're engaged with the cut, it's taking its biggest chip.

Now this helps for heat dispersion into the chip so you're getting the heat away from the cutting zone and into the chip and out of the way of the cut. And secondly, better sort of evacuation. So for when roughing, you're taking out a large amount material, you don't want the swarf to get in the way. You want to get it out of the cutting zone as fast as possible. OK, so the first of the three materials was EN24T steel. So you can see on the left-hand side of the screen are the parameters that we used. So we chose 4.8 millers of stepover, which is 40% of the tools' diameter, with a 1 millimeter step down.

Now, the reason we chose 40% of the tools' diametry is when choosing a stepover, you don't really want to go more than 50% of the tool because you run the risk of wrapping the tool and having a negative effect on the cutting. And the 1 millimeter stepdown would be similar to what would be used if you were using a Tipton [INAUDIBLE] cutter, because they don't have the luxury of having a long flute length so you're limited to how deep you can go with your cut.

And you can see the speeds and feeds here. These were taken out of SGS's catalog for this tool for this material. So this first video is the cutting tranche for the EN24T Steel. It's traversing nicely along the [INAUDIBLE] there's no visible signs of heat build up.

It's an easily machined surface with the right parameters. And this is shown, as well, in the after images of the tool. So on the left hand side, we have the nice, shiny new tool. And on the right, we have the tool after it and we shown the whole volume.

There's some slight build up of heat here in the tip of the tool. That's natural considering all the forces, and the heat is focused on that one area. But apart from that, there's hardly any wear, that tool is pretty much untouched. And the surface finishes well. This is a rough surface finish, but it's that with what we expected with a ruffian pass. If you were to finish that, all those marks would be removed. There's no visible signs of heat build up in the material, which is good. And then finally, the block after it had been machined. So it's a nice shiny surface, the whole volume is removed. There's no signs of chatter or anything like that.

Now the parameters I've just shown you will be applying to the titanium in the [INAUDIBLE] as sort of a benchmark parameter. So we'll be able to compare what those parameters look like to the correct ones and the correct approach. So here you can see the parameters we used for the Steel on the left side, and then the new parameters with that new approach. So it's a smaller step over which is now 1.2, just 10% of the total diameter. And a larger step down, which is 1 and 1/2 times the diameter of the tool.

These are a sort of standard for when you're doing this sort machining, and are using more of the flute length, and a bigger step down then step over. You usually use-- you don't want to go anymore than 10% of your tool's diameter in the step over. And we probably could've gone a little bit further with the step down, but it depends on how much flute length you've got on the top.

The spades and fades again were taken out of [INAUDIBLE] catalog and they have decreased quite dramatically. But one thing to notice is that there are approximate machining time has decreased. So because, as I mentioned earlier, it's taking less passes to machine the volume. Than that has a positive effect on the time taken. So here is just an image of the top of itself. With the large step over and the small step down. And again with the small step over and a large step down.

So this first video is using the Steel parameters on the titanium. So it's about half way-- about 60, 70% through the trials. And you can see the tool's struggling, there's sparks coming off it. The heat has built up too much, and it's no longer able to continue. This is because you can't remove the material at the rate required. It's a hard material to machine, and it's probably Chinese, it's probably a shit material that's burning the tool out.

And this is seen in the tool tip itself. So before on the steel we had very little wear, whereas now there is physical signs of heat build up around the tool. There's some of the materials welded itself to the tip and the tip is no longer there. And this also has a negative effect on your surface quality. So the image on the right is of the wall of the area that we have machined. And you can see here that some bits of material have welded itself back to what was already cut. Now this is because, as I mentioned, just the fact that it can't remove the material at the rate required. It's sort of pushing it out of the way and welding it back to itself.

Now the second of the two videos is using these correct parameters so that this new heartless method that would suit a high temperature alloy with the correct speeds and feeds. And you can say it's taken a nice uniform cut, the swarf a nice color if you can see it just here. There's no signs of heat build up as we saw in the last videos. And it got through the whole volume with no stress.

And that's shown in the tool finish a well. So if you can see on this image on the right, you see that this sort of light grey section. That's where the tool's been engaged with the cuts. There's no visible signs of burns or heat build. The tip's still intact. It's quite good wear. It's wear that you'd like to see from a tool cutting this material.

And this has had a positive effect on the surface finish as well. If we look back to the image before with the bits of welded material on it, that's no longer there. It's a nice surface finish. There's no signs of the tool has been struggling. And this is shown in the finished product as well. So on the right hand side, we have the correct parameters and it's been able to machine the whole volume of material. Whereas on the right side, we see that about 70% through with the marks on the wall, which is what was a microscopic image of the material being welded back to itself.

OK. So the last of the trials using Inconel 718, the hardest one of the three-- machine. Sorry. So we have the same parameters again, the ENT-- EN24T Steel. Sorry. With the improved parameters. Now all that shines here is the speeds and feeds which have decreased again. But this has had a negative effect on the approximate machining time. Because you need to treat it so carefully with this material, it slows everything down, it takes a long time to cut. But I can imagine that if we were to apply these speeds and feeds to the traditional method, it would take five times longer than what it does with this high temperature alloy method.

And again we see the pictures of the top of themselves. And this first video is of the inconel being cut using the steel parameters. Now it's about five passes through now, and the tool's already gave up. You can see it's glowing red, it can't continue. Where if you compare that to the steel, it got through, well there were no signs of this. I mean titanium got what? Half way through? Whereas this is four passes in and it's already given up.

And again, [INAUDIBLE] the titanium tested the tip has been burnt out. It's no longer there. There are visible signs of the material welding itself to the tool. And this tool was no longer able to continue. And this had a negative effect again, with the surface quality.

Now on the left hand image you can say chattering, and that's vibration so that the tool can't remove the material as quick as it needs to. It's damaged the tool, and then it's just rubbing itself along the surface. This is vibrating. Which, if you look closer, it's got some signs of heat build up in the material, which has probably changed the properties. So it's made the material a little bit harder and it's harder to cut. Instead of cutting the material it's sort of pushing the swarf out the and you'll re-cut in that swarf on the next pass, which will have a negative effect on your tool.

Now the second video is that using the correct parameters. We have the high temperature alloy approach. And like the titanium, it's really slow, but it's not a nice uniform cut. There's no signs of it struggling. There's no heat build up. And at the very end of the machine, the whole area, there's very little wear on the tool. Similar to that of the titanium trials, there's a little bit of wear, which is very even, across the whole of the tool where we've been engaged in the cut. Comparing that to the incorrect parameters, the steel parameters, where there is no longer any tool tip there. It was a great improvement.

And again this is shown in the surface finish. On the right hand image we see the same image is what was before, where we had chattering marks, where that's all been removed. It's a nice finished surface. There's no signs of heat build up or anything like that. That's what you'd like to see and you can see the differences there. So the left hand image is obviously used in steel parameters and it was only able to go through those five passes before it was burnt out. And on the right is a whole volume removed nicely, and there's nice surface finish. It's what you would want to see from trials like these.

So I'm going to hand you back over to Chris to talk about some projects that we're doing. The advance consulting team.

CHRIS: Thank You, James. So essentially just the idea that we want to get across is whatever the material, make sure you're cutting with the correct settings. There's a lot of research done by various academic's and tooling suppliers about specific materials. So just look it up if you're ever in doubt.

So I want to take a step back now and look at two projects that we've done in recent years for Rolls-Royce. They've allowed us to show you these projects today, and these projects are very different. What I want to do is go through, essentially, the work flow for each project. And then I want to highlight some key points that you can hopefully take away and use within your own projects.

So this first one is to do with the Advance3 Blisk. And here is a nice cross section of it here. So Rolls-Royce, within the aerospace industry, are well-known for their trench series of engines. And the Advance3 is their idea of a step forward from that. It's essentially a concept, an intermediary stage between what they hope the ultra fan will be. So in 2025 they hope to bring out the ultra fan, and that should lead to a reduction in fuel burn of 25%, which is a hell of a lot. I think you'll agree.

So this Advance3 is a proof of concept for that. And for those that aren't really familiar with the workings of an aircraft engine, I'll just give you a layman's version. So the air comes in the front through this bypass fan, and it's got two routes from there. It can go outside or through the combustion part of the engine. And within the combustion part of the engine you have a series of blisks. You've got this intermediate pressure part here and then high pressure bit at the back where the combustion occurs. And what we're focusing on is one of these intermediate pressure compressor blisks. And that took a lot of practice to say.

So we were asked to machine the one to the left. And for those that aren't aware of what a blisk is. They're also known as IRB in other parts of the world. A blisk is essentially a combination of the words bladed and disk. So we were asked to machine this IP4, which is on the left hand side. And Rolls-Royce asked us to machine two of these out of titanium 64. And what we decided to do was also machine one out of steel, a smaller scale version, just to check our processes to make sure everything was correct.

So I'm going to go through a series of images of the steel process with you, that the same would apply to the titanium as well. The reason we chose to do it out of steel rather than titanium is just because it's a lot cheaper, mainly. So we created this very precise fixture to go on our tool. And here we're using [INAUDIBLE] C50 within our advanced manufacturing facility again. And the first thing we need to do is just check that the table, the bed of the machine can actually rotate the amount we wanted it to with this fixture on top.

So after that check's done what we got was a forging, and as opposed to the forgings with the oxidized layer that I was speaking about before, this is a bright forging. So all of that layer has been removed, saved us a lot of work. So the steel forging was put onto the fixture, and then it went through two turning processes. One, machining from one side, then we flipped it over and machined from the other side just to get the rough shape.

And the cool thing about this C50 is that, essentially, it's capable of milling and turning. So you can place the part on the bed and mill it, and then you can actually have a static tool as well and just spin the table. So here you can see the tool engaging with the part. And the other cool thing is that as well as this turning capability, you can get continuous a-axis movement of the table. So as the tool's engaged, in order to keep the load consistent on the tool, the bed can just rotate and allow you to cut down the length of the hub.

So after we've done those two turning processes, it was time to cut out the blades so we cut slots between each of the blades and then roughed out their geometry. And then each blade, in turn, was machined one after the other doing a semi finishing and a finishing process back to back for each individual blade. And here you can see a video, an indication of why we might have wanted to check that the table could rotate enough, because we want a machine around the back of the blades. It's very upright at the moment.

So here you can see a nice finished blade in the center, rough blades either side. And after finishing all of the blades, we went back and we did two further turning processes, just finishing off the shape of the hub. And then it'll be sent for inspection, check it's all geometrically correct. And then possible further processes to improve a surface finish like polishing or anything like that. Manual processes. And then it will be packaged and sent to the customer for final testing and inspection.

So this is all well and good. We did all of this. Thank you, us. But what can you learn from it? So I've isolated four main points that I'd like to focus on. The first one is the idea of hoop stress. So within a cylindrical part you have what's called hoop stress, which is keeping the shape of this cylindrical part intact. And as soon as you cut a slot into the part you break this hoop stress. And the bulk of material that hasn't been cut pulls away at the slot and can widen it, and it can distort it. And this is isn't ideal if you want to be geometrically precise, as you do in the aerospace industry.

So what we decided to do was, after cutting the first lot, we cut them in a very particular way. So you can see here we've got three slots already cut. Essentially a fourth one about to be cut quartering this cylinder. And the reason why we did this is essentially, if you cut the slots one after the other, you don't do anything about this bulk of material around the bottom of the cylinder. You still got that there pulling away at each and every slot that you cut, distorting every slot. Whereas, if you cut first by halving, and then maybe quartering, then maybe turning into eights, the cylinder as many slots as you need, you're essentially halving this hoop stress each time. Which will reduce the amount of force pulling on the sides of the slots, reducing the amount of distortion.

So this can be done for any cylindrical part, anything with a circular cross-section. The second point I'd like to focus on is the use of blade monoliths. Now I'm using blade here in context of the blisk, but again this can be applied to any thin part that you've got to machine. So I mentioned that after roughing the blades we did a semi finishing and then a finishing process back to back. If we semi-finished the whole blade, and then finished the whole blade after that, once we apply a tool to the top on the finishing process the blades so thin it's going to deflect rather than cut. The force applied by the tool can just push the blade. There's no material left after the semi finishing process to withstand that force. And this is where the idea of blade monoliths comes in.

So by cutting the blade splitting the blade into sections and then semi finishing and finishing the blade in those sections you can leave material on in what we refer to as a monolith. So now when you have that tool cutting the tip of the blade in the finishing process, that force is withstood. Some of the deflection is withstood by this monolith. And so here I've got some images from a different project that we did, which is just a really good indication of these monoliths in action.

So you've got the roughed blades here, just the rough geometry intact. And then you've got all the monoliths for all of the blades, and then for this individual blade you can see the finishing process has been completed for the top section. It's been semi-finished here. And then you still have the monolith at the bottom. And then this is the blade complete. This is exactly the sort finish we were looking for. And then this will be repeated for each blade [INAUDIBLE].

The third thing is the use of test blocks. So I mentioned that we cut our test piece of steel because it's cheaper. But everything we've gone through before that is to do with making sure that you've got the cutting approach correct for certain materials. We needed to make sure that the steel tool parts that we use could also cut titanium. So rather than machining an entire blisk out of titanium, we machined just specific spans of four-five blade spans.

So we cut the hub into the correct shape to make sure we would get any of that deflection correct. And then used our processes on the blades. And this can cause certain issues that you might not have expected to be indicated, like some chattering here to do with the blades being long and thin. And then here again. And this might not be something that you can really do anything about in the final process, but at least you can be aware of it, and you can plan for future finishing processes. And yeah, some of this might be relieved by using enough blade monoliths. But going back to the idea of that, you could split the blade into 20-30 monoliths, but you've also got the idea of cutting time and economy. So you've got to find the balance between them.

The last thing I'd like to do, I'm sure you're all aware, safe panhandling. Just focusing on when we were flipping the part, making sure it was free, able to move maybe but not going to collide with anything, custom made boxes, things like that. We're going to focus on that too much, because I'm sure you're all, if you're manufacturers, aware of that. So the second project I'd like to go through is completely different. So it's another part of an aircraft engine called an outlet guide vane. Rather than a rotating part like a blisk, this is a static part within the engine.

So here are some images of Trent 1000 engines which is one of four variants that we were machining this for. And here is a cross-section of that Trent 1000 and circled is the outlet guide vane, the static part holding the outside together. And also there to direct the airflow. So these parts are mass produced rather than the Advance3 Blisk, which is just a two off we were asked to do. These are mass produced on a production to sell. So slightly different method of approach. So here's the part itself, and rather than machining the entire part, we were asked to just machine the top edge of the part. because the parts are actually made geometrically through another forming process which you haven't gone through, and this is super plastic forming. So in super plastic forming, it's very different to forging or casting. Essentially, an inert gas is blown into a material, and it expands in order to fit a mold. And that's how the rough shape is taken up.

So we were asked to machine the top edge, but in this super plastic forming process there is an inherent inaccuracy in it. You can have parts that maybe distort by a couple of millimeters each time, a couple of millimeters out from each other. So if we were using the same two paths again and again along the top edge, maybe for one part it would cut fine, and the other part it would cut maybe two millimeters deep on one side and not even touch the other side, which isn't the aerodynamic effect that Rolls-Royce will be looking for.

So we got this part. We made a fixture for it very different again to the Advance3. Vacuum fixture here. And it was located for a series of points just placed on. And then put into a machine, just a couple of tool pass to machine the top edge. Again, going back to the idea of just a single direction cut that James was talking about, and the benefits of that. Only cutting in one direction, repeatedly along the top edge. And then this is exactly the finish we were looking for. So you've got the darker unmachined material and the shiny machined edge. And the bottom image shows a good idea of the blend that we're looking for between the machine and unmachined material.

Again this is all well and good, but what does it matter to you? So I haven't really touched on the adaptive process part of the title here. So with the geometry changing we wanted to make sure that we cut the same region of the part each time no matter its geometry. And this was accomplished through a series of inspection routines. So here you can see an image of [INAUDIBLE], an Autodesk piece of software mainly used for inspection and checking geometric accuracy.

Here we were using it to determine where exactly certain points were on the blade, so we were probing two points on each side of the blade at certain cross-sections. And then these two points we used to find the top edge of the blade. And then here you can see another routine probing that top edge after it's been calculated. And these five points go into the creation of curves. And here you can see these of power shape which is Autodesk's modeling software from manufacturing. And the software we use in Birmingham.

These curves went into the creation of a surface. And this surface went in to the creation of some tool parts. And these two parts were made using Autodesk PowerMill. So that's essentially how the adaptive process was completed for each and every part. And this can be applied to any number of things. So maybe if you've additively produced a part that can be some inaccuracies with some processes still, you might want to get rid of, maybe, supports. And so you might want to see where those supports are exactly and machine them away so you don't cut into the part. Things like that.

And while we're on this slide, I want to go through the idea of cutting correctly with tools, especially round tip tools, ball nose tools and spherical tools, things like that. So when you're cutting you want to make sure you use the correct part of the tool. Which is towards the top of the radius and the flank rather than the bottom. There's a couple of reasons for this. The first one is effective speed at that point. So spindle speeds, cutting speeds are set for a reason.

And if you're cutting using the center of the tool, you're essentially minimizing the circumference of that tool at the cutting point. So you might have the same revolutions per minute. But you've got a much lower millimeters per minute. So the cutting speed is going to be lower. It's not going to be as effectively. As opposed to if you're using the entire circumference of the tool. The other thing is, a lot of tools the teeth don't actually go all the way to the bottom. So you've got a nice silhouette here, which shows that the tooth actually stops there. So if you're cutting with the bottom part of the tool you're not actually cutting you're rubbing, which isn't good for the tool or the part or probably your job.

So even a little bit further up where there is a tooth. You can see it's very thin it's not going to be able to cut as effectively. It's not going to be able to get rid of that swarf out of the cutting zone. So you want to cut further up with this deeper tooth where you can evacuate the swarf, the cut material all the way up and out of the cutting site through the tool. And the reason why I'm focusing on this is because it goes hand in hand with machine tool selection.

We chose a three plus two axis machine tool to start this project. But because of the geometry of the vein, we weren't always cutting with the best part of the tool, and that was having an effect on the results that we could get. So you need to think carefully about the machine tool that you use beforehand. For those that aren't aware of the difference between three plus two and five axis, I'm just going to go through that quickly. Back in the day when I was at university, I was like three plus two is five. They're the same. It's not the same.

So three plus two axis is essentially you can change the tool axis but not while it's in cut. So if you want to cut a part you keep a consistent tool axis, maybe you want to cut a different region. Change the tool axis, go back into cut, and then you have to cut the whole thing again.

We changed afterwards to a five axis machine tool. This alleviated some of the tool issues that we were having, some of the surface finish issues. And allowed us to do something like this. Just changing the tool axis mid-cut nice and easily, good finish. Able to consistently cut with the same part of the tool, no matter the geometry. So think ahead with things like this. You might want to choose something according.

The last thing I'd like to quickly go through is fixture so with the Advance3 Blisk we had a very precise fixture, a very expensive fixture. So that we could not only locate the part in terms of translation, but in terms of rotations. So the same blade was pointing the same way each time no matter the way the parts flipped. And so we could just flip it and make sure that we were cutting the same geometry each time. Whereas for this one, we used a vacuum fixture a lot cheaper. But vacuum fixtures can distort the parts somewhat. But that doesn't matter to us we're doing this adaptive process anyway. The super plastic forming process can cause different geometries. So no matter the part distortion we can always adapt to it.

So you don't always have to have an expensive fixture, anything like that. You can just, depending on your process, you can choose your fixture accordingly. And then once you're comfortable with something, you can go into multiple part fixtures to two parts fixtures or maybe even the fabled three part Toblerone style fixture. And now I'd like to hand back over to James to talk a little bit about his project that he's working on at the moment.

JAMES DONNELLY: Cheers, Chris. OK, so I'm going to take you through what I'm doing back at home Birmingham. So as Chris mentioned earlier, a lot of the projects that we do are tied up by rules and regulations that stop us from spreading the word and showing people what we've done with the work. So what we're doing is we've designed our own blisk, our own geometry, and it's going to be made [INAUDIBLE]. So those blades are around about 25 mil to an inch thick in height. Sorry.

So we've designed that. We're going to manufacturing in-house, and we'll be using this to show off what we're capable of, what we've learned in the projects that you've just seen. As well as that, we are doing adaptive tip repair. The image on the right is a project-- think it was in 2008 with various people in [INAUDIBLE]. And what this is, it's a tip repair. So nowadays, when part of an airplane has been through so many miles of service, instead of replacing the whole part. If it's possible, they'll repair a certain edge or tip or a part of the blade.

So here we can see that the edge of the blade has been cut back so any defective area has been removed. And then a new formed part will be welded onto that blade with friction [INAUDIBLE] a form of welding. And then we will inspect with geometry, like what we saw in the outlet guide vane projects. Finding out where that weld is, and then machining it back to a near nominal shape.

And then finally, as part of the refurbishment in the IMF, a new machine has come in, which is a [INAUDIBLE] hybrid machine, which a hybrid machine's a combination of additive and subtractive. So we will be aiming to completely build from bottom of head additive blade. So this machine has a 3D laser cladding head. Which is a picture of the button there is the head itself. And then at the top it's just a quick example of it. So it's a powder that's sprayed into a laser, and it creates a whirlpool and then that material is clotted onto a surface. Building it from layer by layer.

Here's a little video of it in action. If it plays. So there's the material being deposited onto a parent material just in simple moves. So we'll build it from the bottom up and then machine that blade back to a finished size. So just a quick look at the progress so far, as Chris mentioned, before we cut the inconel part we do a steel test piece to test out all paths and just to see if everything looks OK before we do it. And then do an inconel test piece to get the speeds and feeds correct.

So this is the part being machine that will turn on that home C50 again. Which is quite impressive to watch considering if you're used to a machine bed being static, when you see it spinning around at that speed it's scary at first but it's pretty cool. And then here are the images after. So we can see here on the right hand image that the surface finish has suffered slightly, and that's similar to what Chris was talking about with your tool. Because this spindle is regulative 500 RPM. When you get to the center of this part it's not possible to spin fast enough. So your millimeters per minute on that surface speed is suffering, and that will have a negative effect on your surface finish. Whereas if you look at the top the surface finish is a lot better because it's able to get to that constant surface speed. And thank you for listening. If you have any questions, please ask them now.

[APPLAUSE]

You.

AUDIENCE: My question is about [INAUDIBLE] how do you validate the [INAUDIBLE] What's the process [INAUDIBLE].

JAMES DONNELLY: The blade built completely from scratch?

AUDIENCE: What's that?

JAMES DONNELLY: So the additive blade itself?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES DONNELLY: Yes, it would go through those-- we don't do it specifically in-house. But that would be something that the customer would do to validate the process. Obviously, building the blade from scratch says it's going to be-- you need to test it, and you need to heat treat it, yes. But the tip repair itself, well that's something that the costumer would look into to validate whether. That process is OK. Whether you can use it and whether it can go into the flight itself.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES DONNELLY: Yes, so a lot of blade repairs are being done now. Because if it's just an edge that's been damaged then the cost to replace a whole engine or a whole blisk would be great. Whereas just repairing it locally here is a lot easier. It's a lot faster. I mean if you saw the Advance3 blisk, it's a long process and so many things can go wrong. Even the part handling. You could get all the way to the very end and do something, and all that time is gone. Whereas a tip repair is a lot faster. You still got those, you can make mistakes, but it's a quicker turnaround, and it costs a lot less.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] require full disassembly [INAUDIBLE] minor stuff [INAUDIBLE].

JAMES DONNELLY: It's disassembled. Yes, we would be taking off repairs. And then we'll do it in house or at the customer site. Yes.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

CHRIS WADE: I think it was over a week. The [INAUDIBLE] I think the machine itself was about 72 hours. I can't remember exactly how many blades are on that disk, but I think it takes about an hour to finish the whole. Finish per blade that is. And that's just the millions and you have got all the roofing. Your semi finishing and then the turning as well. So it is a lengthy process

JAMES DONNELLY: So 16 hour days is about a week and a half. I think for the--

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

[LAUGHTER]

CHRIS WADE: Yeah, exactly. And if you're the person asked to unload from the machine it's pretty scary. When you think of all the man hours and stuff that's gone into it. If you pressed the wrong button, it's--

JAMES DONNELLY: If you go out with a pass on like this you end up scratching it. You're not allowed to wear metallic so you can't wear rings. It's a rotating part. The OGV, the static by itself is not as much involved in that. You can get away with stuff. Whereas that, if you scratch a blisk, or an IBR, then it's a big no-no.

CHRIS WADE: It's a lot down the drain.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] repair [INAUDIBLE] that get off machine is off [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES DONNELLY: Yeah.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] the whole thing's done. [INAUDIBLE]

CHRIS WADE: It can be to do with the fixture as well. So if you're only machining the top of the blade rather than holding the blade at the bottom, which can cause its deflection, you can have the blade a little bit further up. And then you can have just this open window, so it's going to be fixed to the point further up. There's going to be less deflection because you're going to be machining that bit. Yep.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES DONNELLY: No we didn't. But that last project that I showed, hopefully I'll be able to present it next year. And we're teaming up with a [INAUDIBLE] provider and they're giving us some ceramic tooling to do the [INAUDIBLE] the problem with ceramic tooling, you need to get the spindle speed really high. So a lot of machines aren't capable of getting it that fast. We are going to do the tip crop with ceramic tooling. But the rest will be done with [INAUDIBLE] inconel. [INAUDIBLE]

CHRIS WADE: If you look at the handout, there's a little bit of info about the use of ceramic tooling for something like this everything that we've touched on has been expanded a little bit more in the handout if anyone is interested. Yep.

AUDIENCE: Yeah, the addition material you put on there, [INAUDIBLE] have you looked at the speeds, feeds, all the stuff earlier [INAUDIBLE] material [INAUDIBLE].

JAMES DONNELLY: Yeah, like I said, when you do a test piece, you saw it. So you do five of which was scrap parts maybe. Then you would test your speeds and feeds you'd usually get involved with tooling providers. So the speeds and feeds that we use for the cutting trials are very conservative. So it's something that's available to the public. They'll give you like a broad range of say a maximum and minimum that you can use.

Whereas when you are doing a project of high value where you're doing a repair you might get a tooling company on board. And they work with you to develop the [INAUDIBLE] the cutting edge of the tools, of speeds and feeds. They give you like a rounded values for you to use on that part.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

JAMES DONNELLY: Yeah, it can be very similar.

CHRIS WADE: Yeah, so the parameters are more like guidelines so you might get different results from different bits of material. So there's always the use of those test blocks in test cases and things like that we would recommend. Yep.

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

CHRIS WADE: Yes, so the whole system, because it's a bulk operation, it's running on a cell repeatedly, getting a mass amount of parts out, as opposed to the Advance3 Blisk. It's run through an automated cell, so you would simply maybe scan a serial number for a part. And then it would go in and add a series of operations would take place, such as scanning the geometry, and then maybe putting it into a machine.

And then while it's in the machine tool, this probing would take place, rather than on a CMM. And then it would switch tools to maybe cutting it. And so it would all be automated as a system like that. You can have multiple parts going through at a time. Well there's actually another Autodesk piece of software called Autodesk Manufacturing Automation Utility. A bit of a mouthful. Which allows us to automate these processes alongside [INAUDIBLE] and [INAUDIBLE]. Good question. Does anyone else have a question?

AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]

CHRIS WADE: Have I done any work on polishing? I personally have not done any work on polishing. My colleague, Richard, keeps stealing all this robot polishing work from me, so unfortunately not.

JAMES DONNELLY: They say that the Advance3 projects after that was machined, the blade would have been polished after. So it goes into a robot polishing style and then majority of those machine marks would have been taken away to give a better surface finish. But with increased focus on the chatter marks, sometimes they're too deep to be machined away. That's why we have to be careful. And some of them you can't prevent because the blade's so thin. Soon as he it in contact it will vibrate naturally.

That's another thing that you can work with a tooling provider. They'll come in and they'll probably take a bit of the edge of the tool off so it's less sharp so it doesn't create as much of a deflection. And the approach of your angle can change. It's a lot of things you can take into consideration. But the majority of the machining marks would have been taken out with a polishing process after.

CHRIS WADE: Any further questions? If you think of any then feel free to contact us with emails.

JAMES DONNELLY: If you want any more information on processes that we do and the stuff we do in advance consulting, please get in touch.

CHRIS WADE: Cool. Thank you for listening.

[APPLAUSE]

______
icon-svg-close-thick

Cookie preferences

Your privacy is important to us and so is an optimal experience. To help us customize information and build applications, we collect data about your use of this site.

May we collect and use your data?

Learn more about the Third Party Services we use and our Privacy Statement.

Strictly necessary – required for our site to work and to provide services to you

These cookies allow us to record your preferences or login information, respond to your requests or fulfill items in your shopping cart.

Improve your experience – allows us to show you what is relevant to you

These cookies enable us to provide enhanced functionality and personalization. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we use to deliver information and experiences tailored to you. If you do not allow these cookies, some or all of these services may not be available for you.

Customize your advertising – permits us to offer targeted advertising to you

These cookies collect data about you based on your activities and interests in order to show you relevant ads and to track effectiveness. By collecting this data, the ads you see will be more tailored to your interests. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

icon-svg-close-thick

THIRD PARTY SERVICES

Learn more about the Third-Party Services we use in each category, and how we use the data we collect from you online.

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Strictly necessary – required for our site to work and to provide services to you

Qualtrics
We use Qualtrics to let you give us feedback via surveys or online forms. You may be randomly selected to participate in a survey, or you can actively decide to give us feedback. We collect data to better understand what actions you took before filling out a survey. This helps us troubleshoot issues you may have experienced. Qualtrics Privacy Policy
Akamai mPulse
We use Akamai mPulse to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Akamai mPulse Privacy Policy
Digital River
We use Digital River to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Digital River Privacy Policy
Dynatrace
We use Dynatrace to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Dynatrace Privacy Policy
Khoros
We use Khoros to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Khoros Privacy Policy
Launch Darkly
We use Launch Darkly to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Launch Darkly Privacy Policy
New Relic
We use New Relic to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. New Relic Privacy Policy
Salesforce Live Agent
We use Salesforce Live Agent to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Salesforce Live Agent Privacy Policy
Wistia
We use Wistia to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Wistia Privacy Policy
Tealium
We use Tealium to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Tealium Privacy Policy
Upsellit
We use Upsellit to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Upsellit Privacy Policy
CJ Affiliates
We use CJ Affiliates to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. CJ Affiliates Privacy Policy
Commission Factory
We use Commission Factory to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Commission Factory Privacy Policy
Google Analytics (Strictly Necessary)
We use Google Analytics (Strictly Necessary) to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Google Analytics (Strictly Necessary) Privacy Policy
Typepad Stats
We use Typepad Stats to collect data about your behaviour on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our platform to provide the most relevant content. This allows us to enhance your overall user experience. Typepad Stats Privacy Policy
Geo Targetly
We use Geo Targetly to direct website visitors to the most appropriate web page and/or serve tailored content based on their location. Geo Targetly uses the IP address of a website visitor to determine the approximate location of the visitor’s device. This helps ensure that the visitor views content in their (most likely) local language.Geo Targetly Privacy Policy
SpeedCurve
We use SpeedCurve to monitor and measure the performance of your website experience by measuring web page load times as well as the responsiveness of subsequent elements such as images, scripts, and text.SpeedCurve Privacy Policy
Qualified
Qualified is the Autodesk Live Chat agent platform. This platform provides services to allow our customers to communicate in real-time with Autodesk support. We may collect unique ID for specific browser sessions during a chat. Qualified Privacy Policy

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Improve your experience – allows us to show you what is relevant to you

Google Optimize
We use Google Optimize to test new features on our sites and customize your experience of these features. To do this, we collect behavioral data while you’re on our sites. This data may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, your Autodesk ID, and others. You may experience a different version of our sites based on feature testing, or view personalized content based on your visitor attributes. Google Optimize Privacy Policy
ClickTale
We use ClickTale to better understand where you may encounter difficulties with our sites. We use session recording to help us see how you interact with our sites, including any elements on our pages. Your Personally Identifiable Information is masked and is not collected. ClickTale Privacy Policy
OneSignal
We use OneSignal to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by OneSignal. Ads are based on both OneSignal data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that OneSignal has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to OneSignal to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. OneSignal Privacy Policy
Optimizely
We use Optimizely to test new features on our sites and customize your experience of these features. To do this, we collect behavioral data while you’re on our sites. This data may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, your Autodesk ID, and others. You may experience a different version of our sites based on feature testing, or view personalized content based on your visitor attributes. Optimizely Privacy Policy
Amplitude
We use Amplitude to test new features on our sites and customize your experience of these features. To do this, we collect behavioral data while you’re on our sites. This data may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, your Autodesk ID, and others. You may experience a different version of our sites based on feature testing, or view personalized content based on your visitor attributes. Amplitude Privacy Policy
Snowplow
We use Snowplow to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Snowplow Privacy Policy
UserVoice
We use UserVoice to collect data about your behaviour on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our platform to provide the most relevant content. This allows us to enhance your overall user experience. UserVoice Privacy Policy
Clearbit
Clearbit allows real-time data enrichment to provide a personalized and relevant experience to our customers. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID.Clearbit Privacy Policy
YouTube
YouTube is a video sharing platform which allows users to view and share embedded videos on our websites. YouTube provides viewership metrics on video performance. YouTube Privacy Policy

icon-svg-hide-thick

icon-svg-show-thick

Customize your advertising – permits us to offer targeted advertising to you

Adobe Analytics
We use Adobe Analytics to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, and your Autodesk ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Adobe Analytics Privacy Policy
Google Analytics (Web Analytics)
We use Google Analytics (Web Analytics) to collect data about your behavior on our sites. This may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. We use this data to measure our site performance and evaluate the ease of your online experience, so we can enhance our features. We also use advanced analytics methods to optimize your experience with email, customer support, and sales. Google Analytics (Web Analytics) Privacy Policy
AdWords
We use AdWords to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by AdWords. Ads are based on both AdWords data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that AdWords has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to AdWords to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. AdWords Privacy Policy
Marketo
We use Marketo to send you more timely and relevant email content. To do this, we collect data about your online behavior and your interaction with the emails we send. Data collected may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, email open rates, links clicked, and others. We may combine this data with data collected from other sources to offer you improved sales or customer service experiences, as well as more relevant content based on advanced analytics processing. Marketo Privacy Policy
Doubleclick
We use Doubleclick to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Doubleclick. Ads are based on both Doubleclick data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Doubleclick has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Doubleclick to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Doubleclick Privacy Policy
HubSpot
We use HubSpot to send you more timely and relevant email content. To do this, we collect data about your online behavior and your interaction with the emails we send. Data collected may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, email open rates, links clicked, and others. HubSpot Privacy Policy
Twitter
We use Twitter to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Twitter. Ads are based on both Twitter data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Twitter has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Twitter to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Twitter Privacy Policy
Facebook
We use Facebook to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Facebook. Ads are based on both Facebook data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Facebook has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Facebook to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Facebook Privacy Policy
LinkedIn
We use LinkedIn to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by LinkedIn. Ads are based on both LinkedIn data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that LinkedIn has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to LinkedIn to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. LinkedIn Privacy Policy
Yahoo! Japan
We use Yahoo! Japan to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Yahoo! Japan. Ads are based on both Yahoo! Japan data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Yahoo! Japan has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Yahoo! Japan to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Yahoo! Japan Privacy Policy
Naver
We use Naver to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Naver. Ads are based on both Naver data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Naver has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Naver to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Naver Privacy Policy
Quantcast
We use Quantcast to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Quantcast. Ads are based on both Quantcast data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Quantcast has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Quantcast to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Quantcast Privacy Policy
Call Tracking
We use Call Tracking to provide customized phone numbers for our campaigns. This gives you faster access to our agents and helps us more accurately evaluate our performance. We may collect data about your behavior on our sites based on the phone number provided. Call Tracking Privacy Policy
Wunderkind
We use Wunderkind to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Wunderkind. Ads are based on both Wunderkind data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Wunderkind has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Wunderkind to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Wunderkind Privacy Policy
ADC Media
We use ADC Media to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by ADC Media. Ads are based on both ADC Media data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that ADC Media has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to ADC Media to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. ADC Media Privacy Policy
AgrantSEM
We use AgrantSEM to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by AgrantSEM. Ads are based on both AgrantSEM data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that AgrantSEM has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to AgrantSEM to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. AgrantSEM Privacy Policy
Bidtellect
We use Bidtellect to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Bidtellect. Ads are based on both Bidtellect data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Bidtellect has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Bidtellect to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Bidtellect Privacy Policy
Bing
We use Bing to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Bing. Ads are based on both Bing data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Bing has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Bing to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Bing Privacy Policy
G2Crowd
We use G2Crowd to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by G2Crowd. Ads are based on both G2Crowd data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that G2Crowd has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to G2Crowd to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. G2Crowd Privacy Policy
NMPI Display
We use NMPI Display to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by NMPI Display. Ads are based on both NMPI Display data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that NMPI Display has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to NMPI Display to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. NMPI Display Privacy Policy
VK
We use VK to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by VK. Ads are based on both VK data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that VK has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to VK to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. VK Privacy Policy
Adobe Target
We use Adobe Target to test new features on our sites and customize your experience of these features. To do this, we collect behavioral data while you’re on our sites. This data may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, your IP address or device ID, your Autodesk ID, and others. You may experience a different version of our sites based on feature testing, or view personalized content based on your visitor attributes. Adobe Target Privacy Policy
Google Analytics (Advertising)
We use Google Analytics (Advertising) to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Google Analytics (Advertising). Ads are based on both Google Analytics (Advertising) data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Google Analytics (Advertising) has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Google Analytics (Advertising) to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Google Analytics (Advertising) Privacy Policy
Trendkite
We use Trendkite to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Trendkite. Ads are based on both Trendkite data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Trendkite has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Trendkite to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Trendkite Privacy Policy
Hotjar
We use Hotjar to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Hotjar. Ads are based on both Hotjar data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Hotjar has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Hotjar to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Hotjar Privacy Policy
6 Sense
We use 6 Sense to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by 6 Sense. Ads are based on both 6 Sense data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that 6 Sense has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to 6 Sense to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. 6 Sense Privacy Policy
Terminus
We use Terminus to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by Terminus. Ads are based on both Terminus data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that Terminus has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to Terminus to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. Terminus Privacy Policy
StackAdapt
We use StackAdapt to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by StackAdapt. Ads are based on both StackAdapt data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that StackAdapt has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to StackAdapt to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. StackAdapt Privacy Policy
The Trade Desk
We use The Trade Desk to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by The Trade Desk. Ads are based on both The Trade Desk data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that The Trade Desk has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to The Trade Desk to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. The Trade Desk Privacy Policy
RollWorks
We use RollWorks to deploy digital advertising on sites supported by RollWorks. Ads are based on both RollWorks data and behavioral data that we collect while you’re on our sites. The data we collect may include pages you’ve visited, trials you’ve initiated, videos you’ve played, purchases you’ve made, and your IP address or device ID. This information may be combined with data that RollWorks has collected from you. We use the data that we provide to RollWorks to better customize your digital advertising experience and present you with more relevant ads. RollWorks Privacy Policy

Are you sure you want a less customized experience?

We can access your data only if you select "yes" for the categories on the previous screen. This lets us tailor our marketing so that it's more relevant for you. You can change your settings at any time by visiting our privacy statement

Your experience. Your choice.

We care about your privacy. The data we collect helps us understand how you use our products, what information you might be interested in, and what we can improve to make your engagement with Autodesk more rewarding.

May we collect and use your data to tailor your experience?

Explore the benefits of a customized experience by managing your privacy settings for this site or visit our Privacy Statement to learn more about your options.