DMG MORI Continues Partnership with Porsche
Their goal is to win another hat trick with the Porsche 919 Hybrid in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Posted: April 23, 2017
Because only a matter of seconds separate the winner from the rest of field every year, changes in technical regulations demand consistent reworking of the vehicles, so Porsche AG (Weissach, Germany) returned to the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) with their own LMP1 Team and DMG MORI Co., Ltd. (Munich, Germany) as their exclusive premium partner three years ago. Their second season together brought victories in Le Mans and the driver and constructor world champion titles, and they repeated these successes again in 2016. Achieving this hat trick is now the aim of the coming season, with DMG MORI again contributing state-of-the-art CNC machining systems that ensure only the very best motor sport components are built into the Porsche 919 Hybrid.
The Porsche 919 Hybrid is powered by an output of approximately 662 kW and has completed race after race in first place. But before the start of the coming season, Porsche engineers were confronted with the challenge of adapting the aerodynamics, drivetrain and chassis in such a way that the racing car meets all the newest requirements of the FIA on the one hand, while still remaining the fastest vehicle on the track on the other.
Development and production is also a matter of seconds and even fractions of a millimeter, just as it is on the circuit. The quality and precision of the components are decisive for their durability, while sophisticated materials require efficient and advanced machining. This is where the innovative DMG MORI milling machines and turn-mill centers come into play for single-part production, starting with designing, programming and 1:1 simulation of the NC program in a Virtual Machine that has the same significance as the racing simulator has for the drivers. It enables a 1:1 simulation of the actual machining on the PC – including machine kinematics and real control – so that the machining process can be aligned exactly with the requirements of the individual component in advance to continuously reduce “lap times.”
As components for the Porsche 919 Hybrid are cut from the solid, implementation of the milling strategy takes on a key role. On one hand, the necessary program strategy is available in the process chain for every task, no matter how complex. On the other, the virtual machine checks 100 percent for feasibility and the absence of collisions. All of this makes rejects and additional costs a thing of the past as motor sport expertise and manufacturing competence, paired with a joint commitment, make these two cooperative partners a virtually unbeatable team in their fourth year of competition.
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