Fifthly, How to Pick the Right Plate Roll Machines

 Fifthly, How to Pick the Right Plate Roll Machines

The profit margins of enterprises that employ plate metal in their fabrication operations are getting squeezed more and more due to falling factory orders and rising labour and energy costs.

But, whether it's to update ageing machinery or to capitalise on untapped market niches, firms must continually upgrade their manufacturing gear if they want to keep up with the competition.

Before investing in new plate-rolling equipment, manufacturers should conduct thorough evaluations. New machinery can still be purchased with debt capital, but repaying the loan won't be worthwhile unless the equipment improves the productivity. Because they aren't aware of all the options and factors to think about, many consumers buy equipment that can't handle the production volumes and tolerances.

The purpose of this article is to assist manufacturers in selecting an appropriate plate bending machine by outlining five critical factors to think about while doing plate rolling operations.

1. Think about the material's characteristics before rolling it.

A far more robust rolling machine will be necessary to achieve the same proportions as specified in the drawings, even if the material is substantially harder. If these factors are not taken into account, the manufacturer will have a lot of scrap and flaws.

These days, you need a lot more muscle to bend modern steel. A36, A516 grade 70, Hardox 400/500 series, AR 200/300 series, and many other variations of steel are available because of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' thorough classifications. The rolling pressures needed for the various steels are also diverse.

For the plate roller parameters to be accurate, the customer's application must be matched with the metal's temper and yield strength. This is of utmost importance because the properties of steel have undergone significant changes in the last two decades. The term "mild steel" has long since been obsolete.

2. Find a supplier of plate-rolling machinery that is cooperative in meeting your individual requirements.

Customers need to be aware of what questions to ask so they may receive accurate responses. Every manufacturer has its own set of problems, but a smart salesperson can find out what tools can help them overcome those problems by asking the right questions in a methodical way.

To reach more customers, manufacturers should think long and hard about whether to roll their products in a conical or parabolic shape. By removing surface scarring, hydraulically controlled four-roll machines reduce the need to polish the lamination (bullnosing) on the minor diameter edge of a cone, making them perfect for this type of work.

Torsion bar parallelism and other properties allow for much more precise conical rolling than is possible with electrical or proportional value systems, which only manage to keep things theoretically balanced. A complete conical tilt and subsequent return to parallelism of the machine may be accomplished in a just five seconds, all thanks to finite parallelism.

Details such internal diameters, material type, tolerances, and the final shape that the customer wants to achieve must be discussed. Products in the pressure vessel sector, for instance, must not have any more than 1% out-of-round on their diameters to avoid being deemed defective. When employing a plate roller that isn't powerful enough, the product becomes unusable and all chance of making a profit is swiftly gone due to the barrel effect.

Careful consideration of each manufacturer's requirements is necessary while assembling plate-rolling machinery. The dealer you choose must be ready to meet with you to go over your company's unique requirements. A buying manager could not immediately anticipate all of the problems that require fixing.

3. Keep the machine within its optimal operating settings

It is advised that manufacturers determine the material and thickness that correspond to their maximum work volume. In this way, the business can save precious production time and cut off a lot of waste by delivering a machine that can curve to the specified dimensions.

The standard camber for high-quality rolling machines is half of the machine's entire rating. So, to roll 1/2-inch plate at an almost flawless edge, a 1-inch machine is cambered.

If this crucial detail is disregarded, the end consequence can be a product that is not up to par and rejected by the client. The majority of roller problems occur when rollers try to roll their plates beyond their maximum capacity. A minor amount of barrel effect is likely to happen when 5/8-inch plate is rolled through a machine rated for 1-inch. The margin of error here can be too little to be considered acceptable.

Severe flaws can develop, nevertheless, when the plate thickness gets close to the maximum allowable by the machine. It will be unsellable unless a shim is used to fix it. The completed product may be looser in the middle than the ends when very thin material is rolled through a machine that is rated for very thick plate. To address this "hourglass" look, further shimmying is required, which takes time.

4. Think about bending diameters thoroughly.

More bend pressure is needed for a smaller diameter. When working with thick materials that need to be rolled into tight inner diameters (ID), the configuration of the machine and the diameter of the top roll determine whether the result will have cylindrical edges that meet or not.

Typically, the upper roll diameter should not be more than 1.5 times the machine's capacity to roll plate. So, in order to get interior diameters as tight as 15 inches, all you need is a top roll with a 10-inch diameter. On the other hand, modern machines with planetary guides may achieve ratios of 1.1 times the higher roll diameter by keeping around 50% more plate area under bend-pressure during rolling. This results in a 30% benefit on narrow diameters.

At half of the full-rated value, all equipment achieve precise measurements. It follows that a 3/8-inch machine with a 10-inch top roller may reliably roll 3/16-inch plate to 11-inch ID without any barrel flaw, as long as the roll geometry is 1.1.

5. To avoid sloping, use both horizontal and vertical supports.

The maker of the plate-rolling machine constructed it such that it needed both vertical and side roller-supports for adequate support. When you're hired, you'll just need one person to roll plates instead of two. Because of this, skilled workers can be reallocated to other projects.

When rolling a cylinder, the material's weight is enough to bend it as it moves away from the machine and out of the top roll, provided that the inside diameter is more than 200 times higher than the material's thickness. Unwanted radii emerge in the absence of adequate support.

Buying a machine that has roller supports on both the side and the vertical makes this issue disappear.Some factories try to cut corners on this auxiliary machinery by using "makeshift" solutions like forklifts or overhead cranes. But this quick fix ties up resources that would be better put to use elsewhere. Because it isn't strong enough to hold the material, unexpected curves might still show up.

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