Shop Shapes Tank Industry with Advanced Plate Rolling Technology

In addition to both small- and large-capacity pressurized and non-pressurized cylindrical tanks, AlumiTank is one of the few shops that can cost-effectively fabricate non-cylindrical, rectangular, trapezoidal and D-shaped tanks — a capability that requires not only years of experience, but the most advanced plate rolling machine technology.

Located in Harvard, Ill., AlumiTank specializes in aluminum fabrication. Besides CNC plate rolling, the shop does CNC milling and turning, routing, laser cutting, welding, press bending, testing and other ancillary operations.

According to AlumiTank President David Kirkpatrick, the shop is a mass producer of custom components. “We have over 8,000 different part numbers that we produce, and that number continues to grow on a weekly basis,” said Kirkpatrick. “There is a huge gamut of tank types in the industry, and for Class 8 trucks alone, the demand is constant. We supply tanks to dealerships of all the dominant OEMs as well as older trucks that have been on the road for a while, plus the vintage and antique market segment.”

Founded by Kirkpatrick’s father Robert and uncle Terry, AlumiTank officially started in 1989. Since then, the shop has experienced steady growth and continues to invest in its production capabilities and expand the range of aluminum tank types it offers, serving markets that include OEMs and suppliers to the railroad, heavy vehicle, mining and military industry segments.

Continuous investments in its plate rolling machine technology and other processes catapulted the shop into three of its newest and most lucrative markets: the production of high-capacity tanks for refrigerated railroad cars, pressurized tanks for large cement mixing trucks and — most significantly — non-cylindrical shaped fuel tanks.

AlumiTank relies on three plate rolling machines from Davi. Those include an MCA 2517, MCA 3022 and an MCA 2518/S16. The shop’s first Davi machine was the MCA 2517, which replaced an old manual three-roll machine and ran production every day from 2011 to 2023. It rolled over a half-million tanks during that time period. Currently, AlumiTank is updating the MCA 2517 with a new iRoll eXtreme control and other components.

In 2018, AlumiTank acquired its second Davi, the MCA 3022 — a four-roll plate rolling machine specifically for producing 450-gallon cylinder-shaped fuel tanks for refrigerated railroad box cars. Not only does the machine give the shop the ability to roll aluminum sheets up to 0.250” thick, it accommodates sheets up to 10’ wide.

“This boxcar project moved us into the large-capacity tank arena, and the development stage was about two years,” Kirkpatrick said. “We worked with the customer’s engineering team to determine the size and shape specifications along with how they wanted to mount the tanks. We then produced several prototypes that the customer installed and evaluated, and once they were satisfied, we went into full production mode with the Davi machine.”

Following the boxcar project, AlumiTank expanded into the realm of pressurized tanks. According to Kirkpatrick, a cement truck OEM looking for a supplier of pressurized tanks for water reached out to the shop.

“At the time, we didn’t do pressurized vessels,” he recalled. “A few weeks later, the same OEM contacted us, then a few weeks after that he wanted to meet with our team in person, knowing that we still did not produce those types of tanks. Long story short, we became their pressurized tank supplier. Our next step was high-pressure compressed-air storage tanks/reservoirs for various vehicles, such as air brakes on large trucks.”

AlumiTank’s most recent Davi machine, the MCA 2518/S16, was acquired in 2023 and features an advanced iRoll eXtreme CNC that plays a key role in the shop’s ability to generate its rectangular, D-shaped and trapezoidal shapes. Kirkpatrick said that the advanced controller has boosted AlumiTank’s efficiency by accelerating the shop’s ability to program on the fly.

“Most Class 8 trucks use cylindrical-shaped tanks, while smaller Class 6 or 7 trucks with smaller 30-to-70-gallon capacities often incorporate non-cylindrical tanks,” he explained. “To produce those, we needed to be able to load a sheet, start a program, advance the material through to a given point, apply a specific degree of bend, progress the sheet a little bit, check the bend input, progress again and keep repeating the process until the desired geometry was achieved and the two ends met. Besides the Davi control, outfitting the machine with a smaller-diameter top roll allows us to form corner radii as tight as 4.250” for our non-cylindrical work.”

According to Kirkpatrick, AlumiTank’s most recent Davi machine provided a huge jump in control and programming capability when compared to their first model. He commented that the touch screen HMI on the new machine is “super cool and super powerful.” One of the most notable improvements for the shop, he added, was the program storage capacity.

“Large program storage was a must with the new machine,” Kirkpatrick said. “While our first machine only held 99 programs, we now have the capacity of 9,999 programs inside the control. This new gained capacity means no more sharing ‘like’ programs that require tweaking each time we run them.”

Prior to such CNC control capabilities, the plate rolling process required extremely skilled and experienced operators with an understanding of metallurgy along with some trial and error. When rolling a new and different material or thickness, for instance, operators would have to spend valuable time working out the best parameters, then manually record them in notebooks for future reference.

Material databases are now part of Davi’s two high-end plate rolling machine CNCs: the iRoll eXtreme and iRollPerformance, each of which speed the process immensely. They also contain internal material libraries, and once a material is selected, the control already knows the job characteristics involved.

Additionally, these controls allow shops like AlumiTank to easily edit the material libraries so they can further fine-tune the rolling process for their particular material types. This is especially helpful when material tensile and yield strength varies from batch to batch or from one supplier to the next.

“When it came to capabilities, we didn’t know what we were missing until we had the new control,” Kirkpatrick said. “Davi controllers have touch screens and joysticks for a more dynamic HMI. Plus, the prompting makes producing programs fast and easy. Basically, you enter the parameters you want, and the control generates a program. This allows us to save time and produce the right part when introducing a new tank type into production, which is a huge advantage.”

For AlumiTank, process repeatability is paramount. The Davi machines ensure that while providing the shop with the most innovative plate rolling technology.

“Davi machines are extremely reliable, consistent and easy to use,” Kirkpatrick said. “When we were ready for our second and third plate rolling machines, we didn’t consider any other brands — we went right to Davi. They were great at answering our questions when we were still new to CNC plate rolling, but now we only need to call them once a year or so. With their large presence in the US, their responsiveness is incredible. There is no doubt that we will continue to partner with them as we grow and expand into new aluminum fabrication market segments.”

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