The present invention relates to mechanical equipment, particularly to a butt welding and feeding machine.
Steel plate is needed to be processed through ironware processing. For instance, ironware punching. At present, rolling thin steel plate to form rolls of steel plates is duly requested in processing work. But, prior to ironware punching or other processing work, the thin steel plate must be passed through a pre-treatment procedure. Ironware punching is to be continually well executed when feeding an unrolled steel plate not to pause the machine for the next series of strokes, following roll of steel plate fed to the machine must be continued to the immediate preceding punched unrolled steel plate. As a result, followed by fed steel plate is welded to a rear end of the immediate preceding punched steel plate to form a continuous steel plate by welding, which is almost performed by handy work at the same time. Whenever one of preceding unrolled steel plate is punched through the mechanic tool, the other steel plate must be prepared to add to the rear end of the preceding steel plate by welding instantly. Due to edge flanges of two juxtaposed steel plates are not completely flush against each other; a seamless welding is unlikely performed along a junction line of these two juxtaposed steel plates. To guarantee the products supplied in good shape and quantity, between a seamless welding, the steel plates must be performed promptly to fit market needs.
1. Firstly the edge of a preceding and a following steel plates are stacked together, and then they are combined integrally as a whole by welding.
2. Trimming the edges of both the preceding and the following steel plates by means of, for example, gas cutting machine; after trimming, both edges of two juxtaposed steel plates along the junction line are completely flush against each other, and a seamless welding is processed between the two steel plates, butted to each other.
However, two adjoining edges of the steel plates stacked together is unlikely a flat and smooth joint or seam during welding. Therefore, butt welding steel plates of prior arts as commercially available products are insufficient to accommodate customer's demand.
Needless to say, two steel plates with trimmed edges can improve performance of those welded steel plates. While a trimming process must be performed on both two juxtaposed steel plates; nevertheless, after trimming, these two trimmed edges are flush against each other. Most of feeding and butt welding machines adopted by the manufacturers are half automatic, it needs to make improvements to meet the requirements as mentioned above.
As we know, the trimming and welding processes must be completed step by steps consecutively; to what extent a manufacturing process can be performed automatically and promptly is necessitated an inner stress induced inside the steel plates can be eliminated. Since the preceding and following steel plates processed through trimming and welding, two juxtaposed steel plates must be required a junction rectifier etc., to eliminate deficiencies, such as originally flat surfaces of the juxtaposed steel plates may be out of shape along the junction line therebetween. At present, manual or half automatic operation is expected to fulfill such purpose of rectifying surfaces of steel plate or reducing abrasion from following cutting. Manufacturing efficiency is lowered, the quality of the products are also degraded.
Accordingly, the present invention is to provide an automatic butt welding and feeding machine, steel plate can be processed through automatic feeding, trimming, welding, rectifying, and automatic discharging functions.
Point against aforesaid problems, the present invention is to provide an automatic butt welding and feeding machine comprising: an automatic feeding unit, a linear gripper, a positioning unit, a trimming unit, a welding unit and an automatic discharging unit. The automatic feeding unit includes feeding rollers driven by a first servo motor to impel (or move forward) a steel plate; the linear gripper, which is composed of a number of jaws, is disposed along a path to uplift the steel plate; the positioning unit disposed along the path to prevent the steel plate from turning aside; a rail equipped with left and right shields directs the steel plate to move forward; a trimming unit, disposed between the feeding and welding units accommodate the steel plate extending along (or being impelled) between upper and lower shear plates thereof; a welding unit includes a welding torch and a press element for pressing the steel plate tightly; an automatic discharging unit, includes discharging rollers driven by a second servo motor discharge the steel plate.
After adoption of aforesaid mechanism, the steel plate is exactly moved forward by a servo motor of automatic feeding unit, then moving forward movement of the steel plate is restricted by the linear gripper, and then the friction or abrasion between the steel plate and the trimming unit can be reduced; finally, turning leftward or rightward (i.e. turning aside) of the steel plate can be eliminated by the positioning unit, thus edges along junction line of the juxtaposed steel plates are fit well and flush against each other.
Moreover, feeding rollers of the feeding unit includes upper and lower rollers, the steel plate passed between the upper and lower rollers; in that, the upper roller is connected to a cylinder which drives the upper roller to press downward onto the lower roller, the servo motor is mainly to drive the lower roller to move forward the steel plate.
A number of jaws urged by springs respectively, unless the jaws are pressed downward or otherwise methods; the jaws are normally positioned higher than a shearing section of the lower shear plate of the trimming unit.
Trimming unit includes an upper shear plate driven by a cylinder and a lower shear plate disposed below the upper shear plate.
A welding torch of the welding unit disposed on a transversal rail, the welding torch welds two juxtaposed steel plates along the transversal rail; a pressing element of the welding unit includes left and right presses, both presses are pressed downward at an inclined angle, the welding torch is located in a middle of the left and right presses.
Discharging rollers of the automatic discharging unit includes upper and lower rollers; the steel plate passed between the upper and lower rollers; in which the upper roller is connected to a cylinder, drives the upper roller to press downward onto the lower roller, a servo motor mainly drives the lower roller to move forward the steel plate.
Moreover, point against aforesaid mechanism, a good shelf for storing rolls of steel plates is placed at (or incorporated to) a front end of the automatic feeding unit, good shelf includes; an expandable roller for fixing a roll of steel plate then feeding the roll of steel plate unrolled therefrom. A rectifier is disposed between the welding unit and the automatic discharging unit. The rectifier includes; sets of rectifying rollers distributed along upper and lower sides, steel plate passed through a gap between the upper and lower rollers. Impelling the steel plate by such sets of rollers, the steel plate can be rectified with flat surfaces to eliminate the inner stress.
The present invention is to provide functions of automatic feeding, trimming, welding, and rectifying etc. Butt welding and automatic feeding for the steel plate processing work can be realized, which is not only to speed up manufacturing and processing procedure, but also to improve butt welding steel plates produced in good shape with significant amount.
The description is described in detail according to the appended drawings hereinafter.
As shown in
Linear gripper 2 is disposed along a path, where the steel plate is moving forward. As shown in
As shown in
Trimming unit 4 is disposed between the automatic feeding unit 1 and the welding unit 5, a steel plate extending along between upper and lower shear plates of trimming unit 4. Trimming unit 4 includes an upper shear plate driven by a cylinder 41 and a lower shear plate located below the upper shear plate. When manufacturing, steel plates processed through different manufacturing system; therefore, each of the steel plates may have butt ends, or flanges, so steel plates could not flush against each other by their adjoining edges. Although two adjoining steel plates are welded together, but the flanges are not connected by fusible metal, for example, tin solder, to form a seamless welding. To ensure a significant amount and good shaped steel plates manufactured through welding, two adjacent flanges of adjoining juxtaposed steel plates must be trimmed off by trimming unit in advance; thereby, butt welding plate can be formed with seamless welding.
Steel plate passed through the trimming unit 4 is moved forward into the welding unit 5. Welding unit 5 includes a welding torch 51 and a pressing element 52 for pressing tightly onto steel plate. Welding torch 51 is installed to a transversal rail; the welding torch 51 is guided along the transversal rail to perform a manual or a full automatic welding task on the trimmed edges of two adjoining juxtaposed steel plates. The press element 52 includes left and right presses 521,522, both of the left and right presses 521, 522 are pressed downward with an inclined angle at 45 degrees. The welding torch 51 is located in a middle of the left and right presses 521,522. An inclined pressed downward movement is necessitated by the presses 521, 522 for leaving a spare space in between as a welding area of the welding torch 51. If the pair of presses 521, 522 press downward perpendicularly, a space kept between presses 521, 522 is too close for the welding torch 51 welds therealong. The welding unit 5 is substantially configured by the left and right presses 521, 522 mounted in a V-shaped branched plate, which has two sliding troughs, both of them are inclined at 45 degrees converged toward a median line as two “arms” or “branches” of the V-shaped branched plate (please referring
Automatic feeding unit 1 and automatic discharging unit 8 are substantially configured by the same components, such as feeding rollers 81 driven by the servo motor 82 to adjust a feeding amount of the steel plate. Feeding rollers 81 includes upper rollers 811 and lower rollers 812. In which, the upper rollers are connected and driven by a cylinder 83, the lower rollers are connected and driven by the servo motor 82 etc.
Automatic feeding unit 1 and automatic discharging unit 8 are cooperated with each other to move forward the steel plate. When a roll of steel plate is fed to this machine, the unrolled steel plate is first passed through the automatic feeding unit 1 to move forward consecutively. When one roll of steel plate is used up, the other roll of steel plate is needed to butt weld to the rear end of the immediate processing steel plate, the preceding steel plate is still moved forward by the automatic discharging unit 8, but the following steel plate is moved forward by the automatic feeding unit 1. Until these two adjoining juxtaposed steel plates are welded together integrally as a whole, which are moved forward by the automatic discharging unit 8 to a punch. Discharging rollers 84 is also installed to a rear end of the automatic discharging unit 8 to facilitate moving forward the steel plates throughout the welding task.
As shown in
The description described in detail hereinafter is mainly related to the components added to the machine to configure an alternative embodiment different from the first embodiment.
As shown in
During the transfer period, first a fork vehicle or other conveyance is applied to put rolls of steel plates onto the trunk 62. At that time, the trunk is remained at “floor level”, and the slide base 63 is located at a distant end away from the expandable roller 61 to facilitate placing rolls of steel plates. After the roll of steel plate is received into the trunk 62 in position stably, the slide base 63 driven by a motor is moved toward the expandable roller 61 along the rail 64. The trunk 62 is also uplifted by a cylinder simultaneously. The roll of steel plate is rolled to form a cylinder with an axle hole; the roll of steel plate is to be wrapped around an axle of the expandable roller 61. Accompanied by the sliding movements of the slide base 63, the rolled steel plate fits over the expandable roller 61. To facilitate inserting the expandable roller 61 into the axle hole of the roll of steel plate, the expandable roller 61 should shrink a diameter to an extent so as to fit through the axle hole of the roll of steel plate. The axle diameter of the expandable roller 61 can be reduced to the smallest and then the roller is substantially shaped as an axle-like roller 61. After the roller 61 is inserted into the axle hole of the rolled steel plate, the roller 61 is expanded to an extent as the diameter of the expandable roller is same as the diameter of the axle hole of the roll of steel plate. At that time, the roll of steel plate is fixed to the expanded roller 61 as wrapped around the expanded roller integrally. When the roll of steel plate is unrolled from the expandable roller that it is expanded for tightly support the steel plate, to be unrolled from the leading edge flange of a front end to the trailing edge flange of a rear end.
In practice, the roller surface is composed of a number of curved facets; all curved facet are connected to and driven by a cylinder. These curved facets driven by the cylinder to expand outward in radial direction; therefore the roller surface can be “expanded” to support the roll of steel plate to be unrolled therefrom.
Besides, the good shelf 6 also includes a press element 67, a left and a right shield 69 and a guided feeding element 68. All of them are disposed alongside the expandable roller 61 to facilitate moving forward steel plate. In which, the press element 67 is a swing arm, which is rotatable, with a roller at a distal end to press tightly onto a surface of the steel plate. Therefore, the rolled steel plate can be prevented from getting loose when a self generated strain happened to the rolled steel plate. The left and right shields 69 resist against two lateral sides of the unrolled steel plate respectively to prevent the steel plate from turning aside during transferring. The guided feeding element 68 is mainly shaped cambered outward; a proximal end of the feeding element 68 is hinged mount on the base of the good shelf 6. According to diameters of rolls of steel plates, the guided feeding element 68 is deflected at an angle in position suitable for loading rolls of steel plates with different diameters; the steel plate will be moved forward to next automatic feeding unit 1 along this guided feeding element 68.
After a steel plate passed throughout the welding unit 5, a rectifier is provided for rectifying edges of the steel plate to reduce the inner stress. As
Due to the rectifier 7 is mainly composed of sets of rollers distributed in an up and down relationship. Steel plate is passed through a “winding” path between the upper and lower rollers. As a result, pressure exerted by the rollers can rectify the edges of the steel plate and eliminated the inner stress of the steel plate. Therefore, a following punctured steel plate can be in good shape. The rectifying rollers of this embodiment consist of sets of rollers with two diameters. The rollers can be arranged in an up and down relationship or both upper and lower rollers of different diameters arrayed in jagged patterns interlock with each other.
Due to the clearances between rollers are different according to their diameters, the steel plate passed through a gap formed between the higher and lower rollers, an inner stress can be eliminated by the rolling press between rollers, and the rollers with different diameters can prevent the steel plate from, for example, crushes or dents.
Summarized up, the present invention is to provide a machine having automatic feeding, cutting, positioning, welding, rectifying, and leveling functions, the steel plate is processed through full automatic processes, to speed up manufacturing and elevate the butt welding quality.
Embodiments of the present invention are not to restrict the scope of the present invention, persons skill in the arts provide remedies or modifications of the structure, feature or principle according to the claims of the present invention should be confined in the claimed scope.