North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
North America's Largest Metal Forming, Fabricating, Welding and Finishing Event
By Bruce Grant, COE Press EquipmentAs automakers increasingly rely upon lightweighting and the use of advanced materials as a key technology focus, the use of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) with tensile strengths of 1,000+ MPa continues to grow. However, the complex steel chemistries and thermo-mechanical properties of AHSS that offer improved strength and ductility also come with challenges in terms of formability. These higher yield strength materials have a greater tendency to retain coil set and tighter tolerances between yield and tensile strength.Science Behind the SolutionStraightening materials with yield strengths of 1000+ MPa requires greater forces, significantly impacting straightener design. Through years targeted R&D, COE Press Equipment found that even if a straightener can apply the force needed, it may not provide sufficient roll support. Another issue they unveiled was in gear train reliability as the roll-force delivery required for feeding AHSS results in roll deflection, causing gear wear and snapping journal ends.
COE made significant design modifications to its heavy-duty straightener head and launched its HD Series of Heavy-Duty Straighteners, specifically meant to tackle the processing of AHSS materials, in 2014. These newly designed straightener heads offer increased roll force delivery, stronger gears and bearings, and an improved straightener roller backup mechanism to provide the rigidity needed to effectively process AHSS materials.
Within two years COE had installed multiple new AHSS straighteners at customers throughout the country. Part of the success in gaining customer buy-in was due to the development of performance spreadsheets by COE. These spreadsheets represent a combination of engineering utilities and finite element analysis (FEA), which ensures the equipment proposed by COE can handle the forces needed to bend and straighten the higher-strength materials as they feed from coil through the feed line to the press. These tools also calculate the torque required to drive the straightening rolls in order deliver the required forces on the material. The FEA is used to verify that the machine design and gear train will withstand the forces generated. So, before any equipment is finalized, its performance has been proven to the customer. COE refers to this as the “science behind the solution” – before they build any equipment, they prove to the customer it is capable of running the specified materials.
This HD-Series design is opening new doors for the company as well as new pathways of opportunity for its customers. It has the flexibility of a precision straightener with its ability to process a wide range of material, removing both coil set and crossbow from coiled materials. But additionally, this new design can achieve a level of flatness typically only accomplished with a corrective, and more expensive, leveler.
Flatness that Leads to Fineblanking
In fact, the performance results of the HD Series design has been so precise that the COE R&D team has expanded the application of this technology into fineblanking applications, which normally require a leveler to attain the flatness and tight tolerances required to achieve near net shape blanked parts. The systems rely upon COE’s “Fineblanking Edition” HD straightener and, as fineblanked parts are often produced from thick and high-strength material that can be dangerous to handle manually, these lines also feature coil reels with multiple hydraulic hold downs with motorized endwheels for effective coil containment. COE has a number of these systems running successfully in the field.
New Straightener Featured at FABTECH
The new HD-Series straightener head design triumphs have led COE to upgrade its entire power straightener product line. in booth #A5412, COE will display its upgraded Series 250 straightener capable of processing of a wide range of materials including Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS). These systems can handle coil widths from 1.0-in. to 54-in., thickness from .010-in. to .187-in., and coil weights up to 20,000 lbs.
Contact:
Steve Donnay
COE Press Equipment
srd@cpec.com
586-979-4400
FABTECH 2024
About the Expo
North America's largest metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing event heads to Orange County Convention Center in October 2024. FABTECH provides a convenient "one stop shop" venue where you can meet with world-class suppliers, see the latest industry products and developments, and find the tools to improve productivity, increase profits and discover new solutions to all of your metal forming, fabricating, welding and finishing needs.
