IDEKO STEPS UP ITS COMMITMENT TO EDUCATIONAL EXCELLENCE IN AERONAUTICS AND MACHINE TOOLS

The research centre IDEKO, member of the Basque Research and Technology Alliance (BRTA), will be giving classes in the Machine Tool Classroom run by the Bilbao School of Engineering of the Basque University, in the Master's Degree in Aeronautical and Machine Tool Technologies. The goal? To contribute to educational excellence and to promote the transmission of technical and scientific knowledge to industrial professionals of the future, one of the main missions of the research centre.

In this respect, as part of the Master's training programme, the researchers from the Department of Dynamics and Control, Álex Iglesias and Íñigo Etxaniz, and Iñigo Bediaga, manager of ICTs and Automation, took part last week in the advanced training course on the design, control and use of the machine, sharing their scientific and technical expertise with around thirty Master's students.

Specifically, the training given by the experts centred on mechanical elements and key aspects such as the calculation and selection of ballscrews, motors and regulators in machine tools, as well as chatter suppression and data acquisition.

The students were given theoretical and practical training both at the facilities of the UPV/EHU School of Engineering in San Mamés (Bilbao), and at IDEKO's facilities in Elgoibar (Gipuzkoa).

The first of the training sessions, on edge computing and data capture in the plant, took place on Thursday 20 October at the Bilbao School of Engineering (UPV-EHU). The session, which was given by IDEKO's ICT and Automation manager, Iñigo Bediaga, focused on the importance of capturing and managing machine data to improve efficiency in the plant.

Furthermore, the researcher Iñigo Etxaniz dealt with different aspects related to machine tool motors and regulators during the second session, which was held on Wednesday 26 October in the Machine Tool Classroom of the Bilbao School of Engineering in San Mamés.

The course ended on Friday 28 October with a theoretical-practical training course on spindles and chatter suppression given by researcher Álex Iglesias, from IDEKO's Dynamics and Control department at the centre's facilities. The researcher showed through a use case in the framework of the European VERSO project, the industrialisation of a portable solution for the machining of thin-walled parts in the aeronautical and capital goods sector.

"This solution consists of adding electromagnetic actuators directly on the part to optimise production through vibration damping, process monitoring, assembly verification and residual stress release," the researcher pointed out during the session.

Afterwards, the attendees were given a guided tour of the facilities of IDEKO and Danobat, a co-operative company dedicated to offering machine tool solutions, mainly in the manufacture of grinding machines and lathes, in Elgoibar.

Joint work with the University of the Basque Country UPV/EHU

From 2019, the UPV/EHU's own master's degree in Aeronautical and Machine Tool Technologies teaches students at the UPV/EHU's School of Engineering a set of skills with which they can successfully form part of major R&D&I projects being developed in the field of aeronautics and machine tools, key strategic sectors for the Basque industrial fabric.

Since the beginnings of the Machine Tool Classroom, IDEKO has been working together with the UPV/EHU in order to train highly qualified people with an innovative spirit both in the mechanical design of aerostructures or space vehicles, among others, and in the most advanced manufacturing techniques - additive manufacturing, knowledge in Industry 4.0 or high-performance machining.

In this sense, every year the technology centre offers students the possibility to carry out their MSci projects so that they can apply their knowledge to subjects applied to machine tools and put into practice what they have learnt during the theoretical part of the master's degree. In this way, the technology centre gives students the opportunity to carry out applied research by participating in real projects.

As Nerea Otxoa, Head of People Management and Development at IDEKO, puts it, "at the centre we go beyond training and offer a more global vision, a professional training career, working with a highly qualified team or independently so that the professionals of the future are capable of working on different projects in cutting-edge facilities".

These training sessions are part of the collaboration agreement established between the technology centre and the University of the Basque Country with the aim of strengthening ties between the two entities and training the professionals of the industrial fabric of the future.