Flash Welding Down Cut Billets for Clean Deburred Joints
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing flash welding process for steel billets with 'Down Cut' ends fails to produce a clean, deburred joint due to the random orientation of the billets, resulting in surface imperfections and rejected products, as the deformations obstruct the shaving cutters from accessing the excess weld material.
Innovation Solution
A method and apparatus that determine the orientation of 'Down Cut' billet ends and rotate them to align the deformations, allowing for successful flash welding and deburring by using a flash welding device and shaving cutters, ensuring the excess weld material can be reliably removed, and the billets are aligned to facilitate proper deburring.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If flash welding is performed on down cut billet ends with random orientation, then the welding process can be completed, but the excess weld material cannot be properly deburred and surface imperfections occur
Solution Approach 1:
The billet ends are pre-aligned in a specific orientation before flash welding to ensure that the down cut deformations are positioned favorably for subsequent deburring. This preliminary orientation step ensures that when the welding is complete, the excess weld material is accessible to the shaving cutters, resolving the contradiction between maintaining welding productivity and achieving clean joints.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces dynamic orientation adjustment of the billets before welding. Rather than accepting random static orientations, the billets are actively positioned and rotated to achieve the correct alignment. This dynamic adjustment enables both high productivity (by streamlining the deburring process) and high manufacturing precision (by ensuring clean joints).
2Ease of operation
If down cut billet ends are welded without orientation control, then the process is simple and fast, but the deformations obstruct shaving cutters from accessing excess weld material
Solution Approach 1:
The orientation alignment is performed as a preliminary step before flash welding. By pre-positioning the billet ends with correct orientation, the system maintains operational simplicity while preventing the generation of surface imperfections. The alignment ensures that shaving cutters will have unobstructed access to excess weld material after welding.
Solution Approach 2:
An orientation control mechanism acts as an intermediary between the simple welding process and the deburring operation. This intermediary step introduces minimal complexity but effectively eliminates surface imperfections by ensuring proper billet alignment before welding occurs.
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 the production of rolled steel products with no surface imperfections by ensuring the excess weld material is successfully deburred, allowing for the use of billets with any cut type, including 'Down Cut' ends, in endless bar rolling processes.
Implementation Method 1
the tail end of the first billet and the front end of the second billet are heated by passing a high electrical current to partially melt these ends
Implementation Method 2
the excess weld at the joint is shaved off so that it will not be rolled into the finished products as a surface imperfection
Data Source
Figure 1a~1b
Figure 2a~2b
Figure 3a~3b
AI summary
Apparatus and methods for welding together steel billets having down cut ends, each down cut end comprising a deformation in a cross section of the billet by one side surface of the billet extending increasingly inwardly into a profile of the billet in an end region of the billet relative to a normal square cross sectional profile of the billet away from the end portion of the billet, the deformation resulting from a previous cutting operation, the method using a flash welding device and one or more shaving cutters for removing excess weld material, to form endless bar for continuously rolling into a rolled product, the method comprising steps of: determining an orientation of a down cut end of the front of a billet to be welded to a rear of a previously welded billet; determining, based on the orientation, whether the billet to be welded to the previously welded billet needs to be rotated around a longitudinal axis of the billet to align the down cut end at the front of the billet to a down cut end of the rear of the previously welded billet, so that a weld to be formed by the flash welding device can be deburred successfully by the shaving cutters; operating a billet rotation means, based on the determined rotation, to rotate the billet around the longitudinal axis of the billet, to form endless bar for continuously rolling into a rolled product; flash welding the aligned billets using the flash welding device; and deburring the excess weld material from the flash welded joint of the formed endless bar with the one or more shaving cutters.