Continuous Profile Coating During Shaping and Hardening
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing processes for producing metallic profiles, such as steel profiles, inadequately protect the profiles from corrosion, especially since they are only protected after being cut into individual components, making the process inefficient and costly.
Innovation Solution
A process and apparatus where a metallic strip material is shaped and hardened in a shaping-hardening device, with a protective layer applied continuously to the profile as it emerges, allowing for efficient and economical corrosion protection without the need for post-cutting coating, using methods like plasma deposition, electrolytic deposition, or flame spraying, and optionally varying the layer thickness and applying it coherently or incoherently to ensure comprehensive protection.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If profiles are coated after being cut into individual components, then each component can be protected from corrosion, but the process becomes inefficient and costly due to individual coating operations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies coating to the continuous profile before it is cut into individual components. This preliminary coating action ensures that all surfaces including future cut edges are protected, eliminating the need for subsequent individual coating operations on each component, thereby improving production efficiency while maintaining corrosion protection
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a continuous coating process on the moving profile strip rather than discontinuous batch coating of individual components. This continuous action maintains uninterrupted production flow, coating the entire profile surface including areas that will become cut edges, thus resolving the contradiction between protection quality and production efficiency
2Reliability
If profiles are coated after cutting, then coating can be applied to finished components, but the process requires additional handling steps and increases production costs
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the coating operation with the profile production line by coating the continuous profile before cutting. This combination eliminates separate handling, positioning, and coating setup steps for each component, reducing manufacturing complexity and cost while ensuring comprehensive corrosion protection including cut edges
3Productivity
If the profile is coated continuously during shaping and hardening, then production efficiency improves, but ensuring complete and coherent coating coverage becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The coating is applied while the profile is still in a stable, continuous state before cutting operations. This preliminary coating ensures complete coverage of all surfaces including future cut edges, and the coating process is optimized for the specific profile geometry and surface conditions at that stage, maintaining high coating quality while enabling continuous production
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This approach enables continuous and cost-effective corrosion protection of metallic profiles, improving handling and reducing production costs by applying a protective layer during the shaping and hardening process, ensuring comprehensive coverage and enhanced protection, especially for cut edges and high-risk regions.
Implementation Method 1
depositing from a plasma by means of physical or chemical gas phase deposition
Implementation Method 2
electrolytic deposition (electroplating), in particular of zinc, aluminium or a zinc-nickel protective layer
Implementation Method 3
Also suitable is flame spraying or the application of zinc flakes by a spraying process
Implementation Method 4
the strip material is shaped into a profile and is hardened at least in certain regions
Implementation Method 5
the profile is heated inductively, conductively, with a naked flame or by contact heat
Implementation Method 6
the profile is hardened by a heat treatment and subsequent quenching
Data Source
AI summary
The present disclosure relates to a process for producing profiles from metal, a metallic strip material being fed to a shaping-hardening device, in which the strip material is shaped into a profile and is hardened at least in certain regions, portions of the profile that are emerging continuously from the shaping-hardening device being coated with a protective layer. The disclosure also relates to an apparatus for producing profiles from metal, with a shaping-hardening device for shaping a metallic strip material that can be fed to the shaping-hardening device into a profile and for hardening the profile at least in certain regions, and with a coating device, by which portions of the profile that are emerging continuously from the shaping-hardening device can be coated with a protective layer.