Deburring of cross holes in titanium using industrial robots

The production process (drilling and reaming) causes burrs at the intersection of cross holes. The removal of these burrs is crucial especially for security relevant parts like hydraulic valves in aircrafts. Burrs lead to undefined flow conditions and blocking of these valves. Until now, burrs of internal contours are often removed by manual processes. Security relevant systems are especially deburred by time consuming manual deburring processes. In some cases, this process requires up to 50 of the manufacturing time. To automate the deburring process industrial robots can be used. Typical applications are deburring 1 and fettling 2 of cast parts. There are only a few approaches for sensitive workpieces with high accuracy demands 3. This paper presents an approach to optimize the deburring process for cross holes in titanium using industrial robots and a special deburring tool. The best suited tool for the application is selected after investigating several different deburring tools. All relevant parameters are optimized by experimental investigations to minimize the process time. The results are evaluated by measuring the secondary burr and the chamfer width respectively