Machine tools are built to manufacture components of machines through machining, a method whereby metal is worked upon to form particular shapes. The machines range from simple to complex pieces; they can produce parts of various sizes and shapes. Machine tools have slowly evolved over the past decades. And today, they are used as CNC (computerized numerical control) machines, which would repeat sequences with high levels of precision and produce composite parts of different types.
Machine Tools manufacture daily life objects that make our life simple. There are diverse techniques which can be used to eliminate redundant metal during the fabricating methods. It includes shaping machine equipments, single edge cutting tools, multiple cutting equipments, electronic grinding and machining. For cutting metal, machine tools use cutting tools, laser parts or jet of high pressure water.
Some types of machine tools are drill presses, gear shapers, threading machines and saws. Given below is a list of various types of machine tools commonly used in the industry.
- Grinding Machine: It is mainly used for grinding, a method wherein abrasive wheels are used as the cutting tools.
- Milling Machine: It is used for machining (i.e. cutting & drilling) solid materials.
- Planer: Planer is a metalworking machine-tool that has a reciprocating work table and a stationary cutting tool.
- Broaching Machine: It is a machine tool whose cutting element is a broach.
- Lathe: It is a machine tool that rotates the work piece on its axis to perform different operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, or deformation, facing, turning, with tools that are functional to the work piece to build an object with symmetry about an axis of rotation.
- Shaper: A type of machine tool that uses linear relative motion between the workpiece and a single-point cutting tool to machine a linear toolpath.
With technological evolution machine tools are now operated electronically. Electronically powered machine tools enable the production of all other machines including themselves. A key characteristic is such machine tools work for a large variety of materials, particularly for metal. This helps produce desired shapes. A variety of technologies, sizes and performances helps develop the capacity to manufacture high accuracy elements in huge quantities of any size and shape built by the engineers.
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