Their commitment to continuously improve their operations in line with their environmental policy, means Gardner Aerospace have recently taken delivery of their third swarf briquetting system in 6 years – the second for their Derby site (read more about this here).
To quote the aerospace company’s Environmental Policy:
‘Gardner is committed to the prevention of pollution and will work to minimise the impact of its operations through a continuous improvement program.’
The choice to continue to invest in sustainable green manufacturing technology, comes from the huge benefits & savings already made by the company from the installation of the other two swarf systems to tackle the problems & high costs from processing large swarf volumes from machining centres.
Confidence comes from seeing the quantifiable cost savings made from the reduction in resources required to manage the waste swarf, as well as the coolant consumption & the tangible improvements to the health and safety of the overall factory environment with more streamlined processes and less mess.
This third machine investment in an iSwarf 550 swarf briquetting machine from our supplier Hocker Polytechnik, was required to process the large volumes of aluminium swarf generated by a new Modig RigiMill vertical machining centre. The swarf needed to be removed directly from this machine straight into a briquetter. A bespoke conveyor was designed in collaboration with another of our trusted suppliers LNS to suit & fit the RigiMill.
Because of the high throughput to be processed, the custom-made conveyor exactly matches the width of the swarf output point on the Rigimill, with an inverter to vary the speed of the conveyor.
An extended hopper is fitted to the iSwarf 550 to allow for extra swarf storage due to the large throughput volume entering from the conveyor coming up directly from the RigiMill. An extra stirrer inside the hopper to stop tunnelling and bridging of the swarf and a cam-barrel crusher to break up curly swarf have also been integrated into the specific system.
The iswarf 550 can process up to 350kg per hour, with this particular set up working to produce 90mm diameter briquettes from a 15kw hydraulic motor which allows for a higher throughput of swarf whilst still maintaining the quality & the density of the briquettes.
Overall the volume of swarf reduced down into briquettes results in 20 skips coming down to just 1!
There is a fourth iSwarf briquetter arriving in Derby later on this summer as part of Gardner Aerospace continuing to meet production demands by investing in a second new Modig Rigimill to further increase their machining capacity.
Find out more about our swarf briquetting machines by hitting the link below or get in touch!
