Cool Clean Technologies was invited to present two technical papers involving CO2 cleaning and cooling at the SAE 2014 Aerospace Manufacturing and Automated Fastening Conference & Exhibition in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Real world examples of the benefits of incorporating CO2 into manufacturing processes were shown in a brief twenty five minute presentation.  Afterwards, he opened it up to questions from the audience.

We had the chance to sit down and talk about the experience and how the information on Cool Clean Technologies was received by various members of the aerospace industry.

  1. What was the focus of your presentation at the SAE 2014 Aerospace Manufacturing and Automated Fastening Conference & Exhibition?

The main focus was to educate others on the topic of the advancements with CO2 snow cleaning, along with the latest developments with our ChilAire™ machining CO2 coolant.

  1. What did you want your audience to come away understanding?

Well, we actually presented two papers, so there were two goals:

  • Cleaning with CO2 is now much more diverse as new chemistries and new nozzles have been developed to greatly enhance the cleaning performance of CO2
  • The use of CO2 as a coolant to drill Carbon Fiber Reinforced Plastic (CFRP) stackups with titanium is the next biggest thing available for aerospace manufacturing companies to lower cost and improve quality.
  1. Were there any myths or misunderstandings about CO2 cooling that you wanted to dispel?

The biggest myth is that CO2, as a coolant, requires a special machine.  The truth is that the Chilaire™ CO2 coolant process can easily be retrofitted onto most any machining center, such as a CNC spindle, or a Portable Power drill spindle such as quackenbush (Animated Video).  So, it was important to make sure that the audience understood that switching to using the Chilaire™ CO2 coolant process doesn’t require companies to invest in a separate, new machine. 

  1. What types of evidence did you use to make your point?

On the cleaning front, we showed applications that demonstrated more economical results, and improved cleaning performance.  We showed this in both low volume and high volume applications.

As for drilling, we showed how hole quality was improved in the CFRP and in the high temperature alloy.  Additionally the economic benefits were compared to other alternative coolants on a monthly operating basis.

  1. What were the most common questions you were asked afterwards?

Many questions were asked about the various chemistries we could mix with CO2, to enhance cleaning performance.  Other questions were around the physical size of the nozzles, and for this we had several different examples available to demonstrate the versatility of the system to the attendees.

For machining, most of the questions were around how CO2 as a coolant affected the materials.  We had reports available from independent labs, showing zero damage to the composite or the titanium.

  1. Can you sum up the most important understanding of the presentation in one sentence?

There is much new advancement that is applicable to CO2 cleaning and to CO2 as a machining coolant; and all manufacturers should consider these new developments in their operations.

If you missed the presentation or would just like to know more about our ChilAire™ machining CO2 coolant for the aerospace industry, please get in touch and let us know how we can help.