Press shop (metalworking)

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A press shop is an industrial unit with one or more presses for forming ( deep drawing ) sheet metal (blanks) into pressed parts .

Pressing plants are mainly used in vehicle, aircraft and steel furniture construction. Usually the processing takes place in several steps, on several presses, mostly arranged one behind the other (press line). Modern large presses combine an entire press line in one machine.

Pressing plants consist of three major areas: delivery, cutting and press lines. In the delivery area, the material is primarily delivered in the form of coils with a weight of several tons from the steel producer. This material is then first cut to size. The endless material is cut into small units on cutting lines, for example strip cutting systems or blank cutting systems. The sheets produced in the cut are brought into the desired shape by pressing .

Cutting

Various types of systems can be found in the area of ​​cutting. Although their functionality is not completely identical, their principle is very similar: Smaller metal sheets are made from a coil and made available to the forming technology. They usually consist of a reel with which the endless belt can be unwound, a roller feeder , a belt straightening system for removing the bend in the material caused by the winding, as well as a cutting device and several nests in which the cut material is deposited.

Strip cutting line

One type of system that is used is the strip cutting system (also known as coil shear) which, as the name implies, only cuts the metal strip. The simplest form of cutting is to cut the material to length with scissors, which cut rectangular panels (also called blanks) to length. The next possible shape of the blank is a parallelogram that can be achieved by changing the angle of the scissors to the material. For the production of trapezoids, drives can be mounted on the scissors with which the scissors can be swiveled between two cuts; it is therefore also called swivel scissors. Pivoting shears are usually permanently installed in the form of a pivoting cutting cassette, but can also be exchanged as a complete tool including a pivot drive. Such tools are also called swivel cuts or swivel cutting tools.

Blanking line

In many cases, the blanking line is an expanded form of the strip cutting line. It also produces blanks and is often able to cut square sheets from the coil. However, their construction also allows geometrically more complex shapes to be cut. A mechanically or hydraulically driven press is available for this, in which various tools with a wide variety of component-specific cutting geometries can be installed. The sheet metal produced with it is called a blank. Form plates contain a two-dimensional basic shape of the later, three-dimensional component.

2D laser

In addition to the processes already mentioned, a 2D laser can also be used to cut shaped blanks. In this case, a portal that moves in two axes moves over the workpiece and cuts the blank from the base material using a laser beam. The use of a laser in series production is rather seldom, as the processing speed is considerably lower than the aforementioned (around 10 to 20 times the production time). This processing method is most frequently used for new product launches to test the optimal contour of shaped blanks. It is also suitable for bridging the transition period between the pre-series and the use of a blanking tool that is used on a blanking machine. CO ₂ laser generators are mostly used to generate the laser beam .

Material forming

The further processing of the blanks produced in the cut takes place, as the name press shop already suggests, by pressing. Depending on the size, shape and material thickness of the component to be manufactured, different types of machines are used, which can be mechanically or hydraulically driven and can develop press forces of up to several thousand tons.

Press line

The machines used can be operated individually or in combination. If several presses are combined to form a network, this is called a press line. The reason for the interlinking of individual systems is that certain shapes have to be introduced into a component in small steps in order to avoid cracks in the sheet metal. Cracks in the sheet occur when the limit change in shape of the material is exceeded.

Concatenation

The linking of presses to pass the material to be processed between the individual machines is known as a chain. This can for example be made up of portal systems (often also called feeders ), robots or linear motors, which on the one hand bridge the space between the machines and remove the material from the previous tool operation and insert it into the next.

Feeder

A feeder is a loading system that can usually only be moved in two axes. The most important axes for loading are the X and Z axes, which allow him to cover a one-dimensional travel path and also to pick up material from the floor and put it down again at a higher level. He is thus able to use a gripping spider mounted on him, which is equipped with suction cups, magnets or other suitable device, to pick up circuit boards and insert them into the press or to transport parts from one press to the other.

transfer

One of the fundamental distinguishing features between feeder and transfer is the reception of the material to be transported. While a feeder usually accesses a part from above, as described, a transfer lifts the workpiece from the side. As a result, it is not suitable for removing blanks from a stack, but it is used in the interlinking of systems and especially in the transfer press. The transfer can usually be moved in at least three axes.