Worthington Specialty Processing Orders LaserCoil Blanking System
The 2,100 mm wide dual-head system features two 6 kW lasers that challenge traditional mechanical presses by expanding the production capacity of Advanced High Strength Steel blanks.
Posted: December 2, 2014
LaserCoil Technologies LLC (Perrysburg, OH) has announced that it has received an order for a LaserCoil coil-fed blanking system from Worthington Specialty Processing (WSP; Jackson, MI), a toll processor for the automotive industry. The 2,100 mm wide dual-head system, featuring two 6 kW lasers, is being installed in the company’s Jackson facility to help expand WSP’s capacity, especially in the production of Advanced High Strength Steel (AHSS) blanks, which can challenge traditional mechanical presses.
“As we partner with our automotive customers to develop solutions for reducing the weight of vehicles, this laser blanking system will give us the flexibility to run a variety of materials including AHSS and aluminum,” said Greg Shakley, the general manager at Worthington Specialty Processing.
The increased tensile and yield strength of AHSS has little to no impact on laser cutting speeds, so the cost of laser consumables is much less than maintaining the die and tooling. Additionally, the ease of the LaserCoil system programming enables production changeovers in less than a day, significantly reducing the typical 14 weeks to 16 weeks required to produce a final blanking die.
LaserCoil’s coil-fed laser cutting technology featuring numerous patents is based on over half a decade of research and successful production runs since 2012. Gantry-mounted laser heads stationed in multiple cutting cells travel along the moving strip to balance the workload for improved productivity.
The system’s dynamic profile conveyor features adjustable lanes that support the coil strip while automatically repositioning as needed to clear a path for the laser cut. This feature also facilitates gravity-shedding of scrap and offal, delivering only totally finished blanks at the end of the process.
This robust design enables higher yield rates than other systems (into the 60,000 piece range) making it a viable alternative for processing a wide variety of coil material in aluminum, mild steel, high-strength steels and other materials, as well as structural components in thicknesses from 0.5 mm to 3.5 mm and up to 2,100 mm coil at any length.
The coil fed laser blanking line will combine LaserCoil’s laser blanking technology along with leveling equipment supplied by the Automatic Feed Company (Napoleon, OH). The new line at WSP is expected to be running production by early 2016.
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