Skip the Pit

January 2023- A compact flying shear line reduces footprint and infrastructure costs.

Above: Braner’s Flying Shear CTL line processes coils up to 25 tons and up to 72 inches wide, in thicknesses from 0.135 to 0.015 inch.

January 2023- A compact flying shear line reduces footprint and infrastructure costs.

“We were getting requests from our customers to build more compact cut-to-length lines with smaller space requirements and less foundation work,” recalls Chuck Damore, president of Braner USA, a custom builder of coil processing lines. Historically, the Schiller Park, Illinois-based manufacturer built roll feed and stretch-leveler cut-to-length lines that required a large footprint and a material looping pit, necessitating concrete foundation work.

“Those pits can be 20 feet long by 10 feet deep,” notes Damore. “Equipment foundation and infrastructure prices are very costly. If those costs can be reduced or eliminated, it’s a huge savings for our customers.”

A few years ago, customers started making inquiries for lines without looping pits. That’s when Damore convened Braner’s engineering, sales and production groups to develop a more compact line that didn’t require the same infrastructure as a typical roll feed CTL or multi-blanking line. The result was Braner’s Flying Shear CTL/multiblanking line that doesn’t require a looping pit or any other equipment foundations. Each are custom designed and built per customer specifications, and efficiently convert flat-rolled carbon steel, aluminum and stainless coils into mill edge sheet, edgetrimmed sheet and precision blanks.

Braner-built coil processing equipment includes CTL and multiblanking lines, slitting lines and slit coil packaging lines typically sold to service centers and toll processors.

“The looping pit and foundations for those types of lines typically are quite extensive and are extremely costly to construct,” according to Damore. In typical CTL or multiblanking lines, material runs continuously at the leveler into a looping pit but stops and starts at the shear so it can be cut. The feeder, downstream of the looping pit, accelerates material out of the pit faster than it’s fed into it, stops the material at the desired cut length, allowing the shear to fire and cut the sheet to length. This process repeats for each cutting cycle.

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“The looping pit is essentially a storage area for material [unrolled from the coil] so that it can be cut,” explains Damore.

NO MORE LOOPING PIT

The design of the Flying Shear line specifies that the processing equipment be bolted to the existing floor slab. “No pits, trenches or concrete pads are required. Because the looping pit is eliminated, the machine footprint—front to back—is dramatically reduced, allowing for a compact line that is easier to thread and run,” says Damore.

Depending on the part length, Braner’s new Flying Shear lines can be 25 to 30 feet shorter than previous equipment. “Because there is no looping pit, customers can reduce installation costs, get equipment installed and running more quickly, and help enhance employee safety with fewer infrastructure hazards,” notes Damore.

The Flying Shear lines incorporate a low-inertia shear mounted on linear slides driven by a servo motor. A wheel measures the strip exiting the leveler. As material approaches the desired cut length, the servo motor accelerates the low-inertia shear assembly to synchronize with the speed of the strip where it is then cut on the fly by fast-acting hydraulic cylinders in a fraction of a second and returns to the home position.

Knife clearances are adjustable for various material thicknesses for a precision cut edge. A readout displays clearances. Once cut, a telescoping shear belt conveys material into an automatic stacker. Cut lengths can be inspected on the belt conveyor while running. This process is repeated for every cut sheet. Material exiting the leveler runs continuously, never stopping while being cut. “The shear is no more than a few feet from the leveler so the length of the line is considerably less. Because the material is not fed into a looping pit, the possibility of coil set occurring at quadrant tables is also eliminated,” explains Damore.

REDUCED MARKINGS & DEAD FLAT SHEETS

The conveyor belt design of the Flying Shear equipment also eliminates the need for rolls or grippers that can potentially mark or damage material.

“The Flying Shear lines are terrific for painted products and extremely light gauges, because no rolls or grippers are required to feed material out of a pit. So there is less opportunity for marking on painted products or damaging ultralight gauge material,” Damore says.

“A precision CNC roller leveler eliminates coil set, wavy edges, center buckle and cross bow to produce a dead flat sheet,” states Damore. The precision leveler is equipped with multiple backup roll flights, adjustable by hydraulic cylinders for work roll bending.

“Using hydraulic cylinders to accomplish work roll bending is more accurate and precise than gear motors and screw jacks, because precision linear transducers are measuring exact cylinder positions,” says Damore.

CNC automatic controls are provided to adjust the leveler for penetration and roll banking. Work roll bending and leveler settings can be saved in a memory bank for future recall. These levelers can be equipped with multiple cassettes to precision level a wide variety of materials and thicknesses. The cassettes can be equipped with different roll sizes and supplied in four-, five- or six-high work roll configurations.

“Complementing the Flying Shear, the cassette levelers further reduce the machine footprint when different work roll sizes are needed to level a wider thickness range,” explains Damore. Each leveler cassette consists of work rolls, backup rolls, bearings and drive shafts. The cassettes are power positioned in and out of line. “Cassette levelers can also simplify and reduce cleaning and maintenance time because all the working parts can be positioned and worked on off line,” Damore adds.

QUICK-SET SLITTER KNIFE

With the Flying Shear, material can be edge trimmed and/or slit into multiple blanks using a precision slitter head. The slitter head uses quick-set slitter knife/stripper ring assemblies that slide across the length of the arbors, positioned with a precision knife locator with a linear transducer, and are locked into place to edge trim or produce multiple slit blanks in line.

“Quick-set knives can be set up more quickly than a packed arbor slitt er head to produce multiblanks of different widths,” says Damore.

Once cut, sheets and blanks can be inspected on a belt conveyor feeding them into the stacker. “The conveyor allows the operator to easily verify and measure cut lengths,” notes Damore. The conveyor is equipped with a pop-open feature to remove scrap and reject sheets. Cut sheets and blanks enter an automatic stacker where they are stacked in place.

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An air cushion supports and stacks blanks, while full-width sheets are held and dropped onto skids by fast-acting roller supports and air cushion. Skids and pallets are stored off the line and automatically inserted into the stacker by a programmable pusher ram. “To improve line running and uptime, a double stacker feature is incorporated to allow the line to run continuously while changing out skids,” says Damore. “When we designed the Flying Shear line, we wanted to address as many customer concerns as possible the biggest being a reduction in footprint and infrastructure,” he says. -MM

 

Sources

Braner USA Inc., 847/671-6210, http://braner.com/

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