Robot assisted manufacturing system for high gloss finishing of steel molds

For the manufacturing of molds and dies a considerable high amount of manufacturing costs and time are allocated into finishing procedures (grinding, lapping and polishing). As current automated finishing techniques are almost not applicable on parts with free form surfaces and function relevant edges, as commonly found in molds and dies, the finishing of these tools has to be done predominantly manually. This paper shows a robot assisted fine machining approach developed at Fraunhofer IPT, with which it was possible to grind, lap and polish free form surfaces. High gloss surface qualities with an Ra value of 15 nm and an Rt of 0,4 ?m could be achieved.