Machine tools - Presentation

The study will only cover metalworking machines.

The near-identity of most of the components of all machining centres, as underlined by the definitions 1 , will allow us to study only one of them, which we will deliberately choose to be atypical; whether part of a universal machine or all or part of a special machine, it will allow us to describe its main components only once. Many, however, will be absent from certain machines: their study or use will simply not take them into account, without calling into question the architecture or technology of the typical machine.

There is, however, a development that began with the First World War, but is far from complete: the trend towards full automation.

Automation became a reality in the textile industries as early as the end of the 18th century (cf. Jacquard 1752-1834). The first fully automatic machine tools, bar turning machines, were born at the end of the 19th century, and were only capable of machining relatively simple, mass-produced parts, generally from metal bars (cf. Brown and Sharp; Jung). It was the submarine war that made grain exports from the United States to Great Britain problematic, prompting the development of agricultural machinery in Great Britain, which was forced to become self-sufficient in food. The first modern tractor factory was built here by Henry Ford (1863-1947). Today, the generation of transfer machines, numerically controlled machines, flexible manufacturing systems, automatic assembly machines and many others - all machines on which human intervention is virtually non-existent in real time - has not yet radically altered the architecture of machines and their components.

This undoubtedly stems from a conscious or unconscious desire to keep machine tools in their role as auxiliaries to a human operator. At the end of the "Machine tools" section, we'll try to show a possible evolution of machines, which could enable them to work almost autonomously. The question then arises as to whether this evolution is economically necessary; if the answer is yes, then there are two problems that cannot be ignored. The first, social – if not sociological –, has been the subject of public debate for decades, although this does not mean it is well understood (let alone resolved). The second seems to have gone unnoticed, although its importance is at least...