Ikerbasque researcher: Frank Girot
We work on new processes that allows us to reduce costs by making a technological leap
Your research is focused on optimizing and simulating industrial processes, what does this mean?
One of my lines of research is focussed on manufacturing processes for the aeronautical, automotive and general transport sectors. It aims to improve current processes involving mechanization, welding, moulding, foundry ... I am currently focussing more on the first two families. They're important sectors for Basque industry (tools and SME subcontractors) and here I have discovered the environment that I was missing in France.
The studies that we develop in the High Performance Manufacture Team of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of ETSI in Bilbao (UPV/EHU – University of the Basque Country) aim to improve mechanical processes by optimizing cutting conditions and tools, developing simulation models on different scales to predict type of shavings, cutting effort, temperatures reached by the tool, and also dynamic behaviour during mechanisation (chatter or vibration phenomena), surface geometry and residual tensions generated by the mechanism, and to validate these results experimentally.
We also work on new processes that allow us to reduce costs by making a technological leap. For example, we are developing dry machining techniques for aluminium and titanium alloys, ADI smelting and compound materials as much to optimize cutting conditions as to develop new tool geometries. Eliminating cutting fluids it is a difficult challenge, but one which can generate significant savings (15-30% of the price of a part in the aeronautics sector; 7-15% in the automotive sector) and contributes to sustainable development for industry given that it eliminates fluids and the need for washing or de-greasing parts, the effluents of which process must also be recycled. The impact on operators is also important, given that over 100 illnesses have been linked to the use of lubricant or mechanical part cleaning products.
Another line of research is the application of nano technology to industrial processes. What are the aims of this research?
As I have just mentioned, an important part of the mechanisation process is cutting tools. In this respect, important developments will occur in future both in terms of the materials used for the tools and in terms of their housing. Here, nano technologies have a big future.
Currently, hard metal tools are produced using powder metallurgy using particles that are smaller than the micron. The smaller the size of the particle, the better the tool performs (resistance to breakage, wear, tenacity...). So there is an increasing tendency to use nano particles to manufacture new cutting tools, but with the problem of mixing various types of nano particle to obtain a homogeneous base material.
It is also necessary to be able to develop very fine housings that are resistant to wear and that stick to hard metals. The solution lies in nano housings where the crystals of the housing are tens of nanometres in diameter with thicknesses of one or two micra. This kind of housing doesn't alter the tool's geometry over the radius of the cutting edge and enables improvements in tool behaviour.
Another interesting line of research lies in tool finish (cutting edge) using techniques such as femtosecond lasers for transforming some hundreds of nanometres of the tool's surface, and thus to improve its behaviour when in service.
We are on the verge of making important advances in these three areas.
You recently joined the UPV/EHU as Ikerbasque professor. What has this new position brought to your scientific career?
For me, It has been a new challenge that allowed me to examine everything I have achieved until this point and to focus my lines of research towards new challenges. Today, I am developing many more ideas concerning simulation, ecological and sustainable manufacturing, the application of nano technologies to the mechanised sector, issues that seem important for the CAPV (Autonomous Region of the Basque Country) with a view to the future. These new working conditions allow me to publish more and to gain more recognition for my contributions to the scientific community and world of industry.
In terms of teaching, I have concentrated on cutting-edge subjects in mechanics for final year Industrial Engineering students belonging to the Machine Tools class, that has been developed by the Faculty of Engineering at Bilbao's ETSI (UPV/EHU) or research Masters, i.e. reduced groups of students who are very interested in these areas.
The industrial and institutional contest is also much more favourable and allows me to develop more ideas through projects that directly involve companies. Information flows better and associations (especially the Basque group of the Manufacture platform) are more active here.
Conditions could not be better for my personal and professional development.
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