HVAC Automated Hot Forming Cell

This 4-gantry exchange arm solution produces natural gas components from 3.5” – 25” long and .75” – 1.5” in diameter.  The gantry removes a pipe from a raw material hopper and loads a threading station.  From there we introduce the pipe to an induction heating system.  When the part is orange hot, we transfer the pipe to a multi-hit Ram End Form Machine to produce the end form geometry.  The part is finally shuttled to a discharge chute.  This system is complete with recirculated chilled water that is pumped through the tooling and gantry exchange arms where hot parts are present, greatly extending tool life.  The entire automated cell is built on a skid system for easy install and re-location within the customer facility.  The cell is complete with all safety requirements – in this case a keyed Fortress System.  All machines, tooling, and grip fingers are designed for quick changeover within this family of parts and can be easily re-tooled for other automated production applications.  The output of the cell is over 300 parts per hour.