Typical applications Special cutting applications

Increasing requirements for automatic component production in the steel industry and for mechanical engineering make economical pre-production of workpieces more important. Only when tight tolerances in preparing seams are ensured, can automated welding applications perform better.

The ibs beveling machine tool for special cutting applications regarding autogenous and plasma technology is a stable portal installation including a specially designed cutting head for beveling arbitrary contours with varying beveling angles. A laser camera is used for measuring the workpiece surface and to track the edges ensuring the correct root face width even in the case of heat distortion. By using CAD data, the machine is off-line programmed through an integrated DNC interface.

The higher cutting speeds as a result of the plasma process improve the installation's capacity and flexibility to a high degree. A special torch holding device at the flame cutting parallelogram supports a simple exchange from autogenous to plasma cutting. This extends the application possibilities of the ibs beveling machine tool tremendously. The specially designed tool exchange system by igm enables a change of processes without time-consuming torch calibration resulting in extremely short machine set-up time.

The systems autogenous and plasma beveling machine tool are optimized for a particular simple generation of working programs for flame cutting of even sheets. The control system computes all axis positions of the flame cutting system based on the workpiece contours defined by teach-in or off-line programming and the numerically specified beveling parameters (beveling angle and root face width or beveling width and beveling depth) while considering the programmed sheet thickness and the torch-specific parameters (cutting gap width).

The essential differences compared to conventional methods are added by unique software functions with additional features for flame cutting applications.

	Arbitrary number of programs with program names up to 13 alpha-numerical characters
	Automatic program shift to different working stations (stop limits) depending on selection of active working station at program start.
	Programmable and, with tolerances, correctable sheet thickness in tenth of millimeters by automatic sheet thickness measurement
	Technology parameters contained in a table, such as gas pressures, cutting speed, nozzle distance and pre-heating time which may not be specified for program generation.
	Optimized plasma process by automatic compensation of angle errors due to the process
	On-line correction of gas pressures, cutting speed, cutting gap width, and pre-heating time
	Flame monitoring for stopping program execution in case of flame extinguishing.
	Reaching the optimal pre-heating position. When cutting has been interrupted, the torch may be moved back and forth along the executed path (restart). In case of a restart, pre-heating time is executed.
	Automatic cutting gap compensation
	DNC interface for off-line generated working programs
	Up/down-load of programs from a host computer (e.g., DEC/VAX) or PC