Getting In Gear With Shot Peening
A Rosler shot peening machine that provides high throughput helped BMW precisely and quickly surface finish gear components for electric vehicles.
Shot peening has established itself in the automotive industry as a crucial surface refinement operation. For this finishing task, Munich, Germany-headquartered automaker BMW integrated the indexing satellite table shot blast machine RST 200-S15 from Rösler Oberflächentechnik GmbH, Untermerzbach, Germany, into a new manufacturing line for gear components for electric vehicles at its plant in Dingolfing, Germany. (Rosler Metal Finishing USA LLC is in Battle Creek, Michigan.)
The customer decided to purchase the Rösler equipment because BMW reportedly had excellent experience with machines of the same type regarding productivity, process stability and ease of maintenance.
In the automotive industry shot peening is utilized to induce a compressive residual stress in gear components, for example, and thereby extend the lifespan of the material. For this task, the BMW plant uses satellite table shot blast machines from Rösler, which have been precisely adapted to the customer’s technical requirements. As a result, the highly adaptable RST 200- S15 equipment concept was implemented in the new manufacturing line for gear components.
Rösler reports that the rotary table of the shot blast machine contains 15 rotating satellite stations equipped with workpiece specific fixtures. Depending on the workpiece, a part loading/unloading system supplied by the customer places one or several workpieces on the satellite stations. After they have been loaded, the workpieces pass through multiple stations in the shot blast machine at indexing cycles of 20 seconds.
These stations include two blast positions. Special lifting gates prevent spillage of blast media into other stations. During the peening operation the satellites rotate at preset speeds in front of the blast turbines. In combination with the automatic blast pattern adjustment to the respective workpiece shape, this achieves homogeneous peening results. A compressed air cleaning station placed in front of the loading/unloading section blows off dust and residual blast media from the finished components.
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