If you are a metal shop in Grand Rapids, you know what your customers want. They require components that have smooth edges and surfaces that lack any metal projection. Among the various ways, fabrication shops and technicians can accomplish this through the following:
* Abrasive flow
* Brush, buffing, polishing
* Centrifugal barrel or disk
* Conventional barrel
* Electrolytic
* Spindle type
* Thermal energy method (TEM)
* Vibratory
While having been around since the late 1960s, thermal deburring (TEM) still falls under nonconventional methods.
What TEM Accomplishes and How
TEM is a subtractive process – like the most fabrication. It uses energy from a process in which three elements are essential for successful deburring:
1. Fuel
2. Oxygen
3. Heat
The interaction of these three creates the thermal energy required to burn away burrs and flashes from the metal component. The result is effective if all three work in conjunction with each other. If any are lacking, TEM cannot occur.
When utilizing thermal deburring effectively, the component emerges without scratches. This is a major reason why many industries with sensitive parts turn to TEM. It is far gentler than the alternatives listed above producing dent and scratch free components, reducing the need for further finishing work. Reducing the workload can also decrease the labor costs.
Thermal Deburring
It is always challenging to produce a completely finished component effectively. Fabricators and companies require the components to be burr free. For fabricators, avoiding such things as dings and dents results in a saving of time, materials and labor. With certain metals, the traditional approach and techniques cannot address this need. As a result, it proves to be beneficial for shops to turn to less conventional methods such as thermal deburring. Metalworkers in such places as Grand Rapids rely on this method to ensure the emerging product meets the highest quality standards being both aesthetically pleasing and clean of all edges, flashes, and burrs.
