Mesh Automation

by Yeow Siew Cheng

Publisher - NatSteel Holdings Pte Ltd

Category - General Novel

Fully automatic welding lines for the production of standard reinforcing mesh in sheets are widely available. These lines are capable of processing cold and hot rolled material. Line wires are loaded onto the pay-off where they are unspooled and fed into the welding units. The cross-wire is pulled from the coil/spool, in-line straightened in two perpendicular planes and shot–in into the welding line. The wires are welded to the top side of the line wires. The mesh sheets are discharged and stacked automatically to allow for continuous production without interruptions. Automatic tying of sheet batches is executed by the automatic tying station. The sheet batches are moved to the pile stacker to be packaged before transferring for loading. These lines are very efficient for the production of standard meshes in large batch sizes. The high level of automation is costly and is only justifiable for a large set-up with standardized products. The efficiency of these lines diminishes once they are used to produce engineering mesh – meshes tailor-made to customer’s requirements. These meshes are normally of different sizes and shapes and often in small batches, made just-in-time according to customers’ specification. The frequent change-over incurs significant set-up time, and the small batch sizes do not allow the welders to reach its optimum speed. With the growing demand in these meshes, there is a need to review and address the efficiency of these available lines and customize them to suit the changing products requirements. This paper will present our search for the different systems to be adapted to meet this so that the same level of automation for engineering mesh - made to order, just in-time for the customers is possible.

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