Knowledge of CNC Machines

Selecting Manufacturing Processes

An extensive and continuously expanding variety of manufacturing processes are used to produce parts, and there is usually more than one method of manufacturing a part from a given material. The broad categories of processing methods are as follows:

(A) Casting: Expendable mold and permanent mold.

(B) Forming and shaping: Rolling, forging, extrusion, drawing, sheet forming, powder metallurgy, and molding.

(C) Machining: Turning, boring, drilling, milling, planing, shaping, broaching, and grinding, ultrasonic machining; chemical, electrical, and electrochemical machining; and high-energy-beam machining; this category also includes micromachining for producing ultraprecision parts.

(D) Joining: Welding, brazing, soldering, diffusion bonding, adhesive bonding, and mechanical joining.

(E) Finishing: Honing, lapping, polishing, burnishing, deburring, surface treating, coating, and plating.

(F) Nanofabrication: It is the most advanced technology and is capable of producing parts with dimensions at the nano level(one billionth); it typically involves processes such as etching techniques, electron-beams, and laser-beams. Present applications are in the fabrication of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and extending to nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS), which operate on the same scale as biological molecules.