The new “High sophisticated steel grades” such as AHSS, Dual and TRIP steels are more and more a challenge of getting them joined in current and future steel works processing line. The partly build in technologies like: Flash Butt and Overlap welding are just not able to cope with these particular grades anymore.

Challenges:

Looking at the above the driving factor of implementing a Laser welder into an existing line was to get away from the need of having to weld intermediate mild steel strips between the AHSS coils (ZEBRA System). The IDEAL concept takes well care of that particular problem as not only the joining of the coil head to the tail is done by the Laser also the strip end preparation is realized by means of Laser cutting, which provides an outstanding strip edge preparation and that right through the different range steel grades. Even different material mix as well as various strip dimensions and eventually coatings can now be managed.

The second challenge for such a HDGL is the space availability. Here IDEAL had to find a solution of squeezing in a machine into a quite narrow footprint. The 3-D Modelling tool wasof great help to solve this particular task.Beside of the space availability IDEAL also had to face a substantial number of obstacles like supporting beams, columns pipes, etc. and that in all directions. Even in height there were restrictions as there is an oven platform just above the welder.

Third, but not least was the very short commissioning period as it is usually the case for projects of line revamping. TKSE and IDEAL have mutually worked out a tight schedule as well as an assembly procedure for keeping the commissioning period as short as possible.

Result

The result is a customized solution, which is taking care of a full continuous work flow in the TKSE/ German plant.

(Author: Mr. Michael Tieze, Sales Manager)