The new Exit Handling System supplied for the 20 Stand Roll Former Process Line at Corus CEP was designed to process various forms of rolled cold steel sections used in the Construction Highways Industry. The system runs in a linear direction and carriers out an automated pick and place motion of each product utilising three zoned areas.
It was a turnkey solution to transfer all product types from the roll forming line to an operator programmable stack requiring a set up time of less than 20 minutes.
The system is able to handle all products up to 12000mm but the minimum requirement is to handle products that are between 2000mm and 8000mm long. Shorter lengths are manually stacked.
An accumulating area is provided for completed stacks so that the system can be unloaded (via side loader or forklift) without requiring the roll forming line to be stopped.
The project comprised :
Infeed Acceleration Conveyors - A combination of steel and rubber coated roller conveyors are used to remove the products from the flying shear and accelerate them to pull a gap between products prior to entering the picking area.
Pick and Place - 3 Servo driven XYZ units use electro-permanent magnets to pick up a variety of steel shapes weighing up to 55 Kg/m and stack them on the exit conveyors. The 3 units can operate independently for speed on short lengths or synchronise to handle lengths up to 12 metres.
Turnover Unit - 3 Pneumatically operated turnover arms use sets of pneumatic-permanent magnets to turn the products prior to stacking. This enables the products to be efficiently stacked in a back to back formation.
Exit Conveyors - 3 sets of heavy duty chain conveyors remove the completed stack of products weighing up to 13.5 Tonnes. Light guards separate the stacking area from the safe area where the stack is banded and then collected.
A new Drive and Control system, including an Incomer, VSD, Servo Drive, Servo Controller and Aux Control sections.
A new Exit Handling Operator Station was supplied. This incorporated an internally mounted PC, 19'' Flat Screen and flush mounted Industrial Keypad. The PC was loaded with an iFix Client Licence enabling new Operator Displays to be used in conjunction with the new exit handling system and also incorporates an interface to the existing process production schedule.
The existing Roll Former control System currently uses iFix to generate the production schedule for the Roll Former and Exit Cut-off Shear. The current information being generated from this schedule includes product type, length and speed. These three parameters are communicated to the new servo controller where a new recipe handling system is located. The three parameters enable a matrix, which is able to select one of 50 recipes that are contained within the controller.
Each pick and place station has 9 different sequences for the 9 different products that have been defined. Depending on product length, selection of 1, 2 or 3 Pick and Place Stations are enabled and synchronised.