Nowadays modern rail carriages are manufactured from aluminium double hollow profiles. Machining of such extruded profiles is done on large milling machines. Processes involved are machining side walls, milling of the joining points to the floor and roof, as well as cutting of window and door openings.

A flexible clamping system is required for this, which can be adapted to various geometries of different components within a very short time in order to keep downtimes to a minimum. Because a substantial part of the milling involves cutting break-throughs, the clamping equipment must be designed to allow this and avoid interfering contours in all axis directions.

Mechanical clamping solutions usually cannot fulfill these requirements and the use of vacuum technology is ideally suited under these conditions. It enables free access to at least five sides.

Witte has now developed a "Rail Pod vacuum system".
This vacuum clamping system consists of circular vacuum clamps which are mounted on a column and these in turn are screwed to a foot element.

The diameter of the "sucker" can be varied and they are manufactured individually depending on the requirements of part geometry and T-slot distance of the customer’s machine table.

The foot elements are mounted either axis-parallel in T-Grooves or are freely adjustable in all directions of the machine table enabling positioning at any point on the table surface. Single or multiple clamping of several work pieces is possible either simultaneously or in exchange. Pods can be set up in line, diagonally or circular and customized positioning for any component is possible within just a few minutes.

High investment costs, for example for a vacuum clamping plate over the complete machine table surface are eliminated. Specially shaped sealing elements allow secure clamping of uneven work pieces.

Aligning holes in the centre of the clamping surface enable accurate positioning by the spindle of the machine tool and or position.

An additional function to these rail pods is activated by twisting the top to the bottom and thus manually adjusting the required mounting height on the machine table. Even parts with different levels in the undersurface can be clamped securely with this vacuum system. This type of pod is preset to the necessary height, measured and then locked using a clamping mechanism.

Benefits include flexibility and the individual customization for different work piece shapes and materials, high clamping forces with process-safe vacuum clamping and low investment costs particularly characterize this development from the Witte company.
Comprehensive accessories and energy efficient vacuum units complement this vacuum clamping system.

According to the manufacturer applications in the aviation industry, i.e. for mechanical machining of CFRP is possible as well as machining work pieces in aluminium sheets and profiles, especially in large formats.