Page 18 - AMTDC Annual Report 2019-20flipbook

Fully Automated Multi-Station Robotic Grinder-cum-Polisher:

An Impactful Solution at Affordable Price

Scope/ Objective:

1. To indigenise the production of a state-of-the-art fully
automated multi-station grinding cum polishing machine to cater
to the present-day requirement of very fast assessment of A Fruitful Collaboration
material quality through metallographic technique, which not only
overcomes the problem of lack of skilled workmanship but also with Industry Partner
ensures production of better surface quality and repeatability.
2. To establish a methodology to design and develop a fully The technology is already
automated multi-station grinding and polishing machine along available with USA & Europe and
with automatic foil changing unit that can facilitate micrographic such machines are existing in the
sample preparation maintaining consistency of planarity world market at a very high price.
simultaneously in six specimens achieving a surface flatness of Indian companies are starting to look
about 5µm.
for this type of advanced facilities for
3. To improve the current status of the Indian scenario of import competitive edge. In this scenario,
dependence for the metallographic investigation with the in- Advanced Manufacturing
house development of such sophisticated system and thereby Technology Development Centre
reducing the import dependence and Forex loss. (AMTDC) in collaboration with its
Project Overview: industry partner, Chennai Metco, a
leading grinding & polishing system
The design is made along the guidelines of the Axiomatic manufacturer in India, took up the
design approach. Based on this approach, the system architecture project and successfully developed
has been developed by decomposing functional requirements and this technology to help India not to
design parameters into 5 modules. The 5 modules identified are- lack behind.
(i) holding and polishing of the specimen, (ii) transport of the
specimen, (iii) transport of the foil, (iv) automation of the entire
system and (v) allowing user access. The 5-module functional
requirements for the machine again are brought under a broad 3-
module system depending on the nature of the element and its
performance. These modules are identified as (1) the kinematic
module (2) the mechatronic module, and (3) the HMI module.

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AMTDC Annual Report | 2019-20