Customer Problem | Pain Point:
Many components in the vehicles that we drive every day are formed tubes. A customer within the automotive industry approached Proto-1 to create an automated solution to produce a steering component for future lines of automotive vehicles.
Engineering A Solution:
In order to form these steering components, thick wall mild steel must be reduced down to the customer’s specification. Based on the customers strict tolerances, cycle time required, and request for minimal operator involvement, the decision was made to design and build a custom automated machine based off Proto-1’s RAM platform. Our RAM series of tube end forming machines uses hydraulic force to push a tool over a clamped tube, thus reducing/swaging the end of the tube. Depending on the thickness of the material, shape required, and tolerances, multiple tool hits may be needed to progressively size down the tube to meet the specifications. In the case of this project, the end form at hand needed 3 hits to properly form the end to the required specification.
Designing a custom automated machine not only reduced operator involvement, but it also allowed that involvement to be done while the machine was running. Using zoned safety areas, the operator was allowed to load the feed hopper while the machine was completing its process on the forming side. The outfeed table system was designed to allow the tubes to be unloaded and packed into bins by the operator while the machine continued to produce parts.
To start, the operator loads tubes into the feed hopper. The tubes would move from the hopper to an infeed system. That infeed system would transfer the tube into the forming die. From there the forming die would clamp the tube, it would then be justified, and then a mandrel would be inserted. The mandrel was needed to help achieve the tolerances and form specified by the customer. Once the tube is seated, the ram shuttle with the tooling would move in to form the end of the tube. After that process was complete, the outfeed system would shuttle underneath the tube and the mandrel relocated back to home. The outfeed system then moved the tube to the transfer plate where it would be offloaded to an outfeed table where an operator or robot could remove the final product.
Final Tube Forming Solution Delivered to Customer:
When the machine is running in full auto mode, this custom RAM tube end forming machine could produce a part every 28.8 seconds. The final product was swaged down from 2.00” to 1.75” on 0.120” wall mild steel. This automated tube end forming solution provided our customer with the ability to utilize their operator time more effectively, while producing parts to their specification, within their cycle time requirements.
