Integrated system for producing articles from sheet material
AssigneeKooima Ag, Inc.
InventorPhilip G. Kooima
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system for producing parts from a strip of sheet material wound in a coil may have a plurality of stations, including a preliminary station for holding the coil, a first leveling station for receiving the unwound portion of the strip from the preliminary station to manipulate the strip in a manner to reduce an initial curvature of the strip, a cleaning station for cleaning at least a region of one of the strip, and a cutting station positioned along the material path and configured to cut the strip of sheet material, the cutting station being configured to cut the strip of sheet material to form the parts.
Claims16
A system for producing parts from a strip of sheet material wound in a coil, the strip of sheet material having opposite faces, the system defining at least a continuous material path for movement of the strip of sheet material from a material intake to a material output, the system comprising:
- a plurality of stations between the material intake and the material output of the continuous material path, the plurality of stations including:
- a preliminary station positioned along the continuous material path at the material intake, the preliminary station being configured to hold the coil of the strip of sheet material prior to processing of the sheet material;
- a first leveling station positioned after the preliminary station along the continuous material path between the material intake and the material output of the material path, the first leveling station being configured to receive the unwound portion of the strip of sheet material moving along the material path from the preliminary station, the first leveling station being configured to manipulate the strip of sheet material passing through the first leveling station in a manner to reduce an initial degree of curvature of the strip of sheet material received from the preliminary station;
- a cleaning station positioned after the first leveling station along the continuous material path between the material intake and the material output of the material path, the cleaning station being configured to clean at least a region of one of the opposite faces of the strip of sheet material moving along the material path from the first leveling station;
- a cutting station positioned after the cleaning station along the continuous material path between the material intake and the material output, the cutting station being configured to cut parts from the strip of sheet material moving along the material path from the cleaning station to form the parts;
- and
- wherein the cleaning station comprises an ablation apparatus positioned along the continuous material path between the material intake and the material output of the material path, the ablation apparatus being configured to selectively ablate regions of a first said face of the strip of sheet material moving along the continuous material path.
A system for producing parts from a strip of sheet material wound in a coil, the strip of sheet material having opposite faces with a uniform thickness between the opposite faces, the system defining at least a portion of a material path for movement of the strip, the system comprising:
- a plurality of stations, the plurality of stations including:
- a preliminary station configured to hold the coil of the strip of sheet material;
- a first leveling station positioned along the material path and being configured to receive the unwound portion of the strip of sheet material from the preliminary station, the first leveling station being configured to manipulate the strip of sheet material passing through the first leveling station in a manner to reduce an initial degree of curvature of the strip of sheet material received from the preliminary station such that the opposite faces are flat;
- a cleaning station positioned along the material path and being configured to clean at least a region of one of the opposite flat faces of the strip of sheet material;
- and
- a cutting station positioned along the material path and configured to cut the strip of sheet material to permit removal of the parts from a remainder of the sheet material remaining after removal of the parts;
- wherein the parts are cut from the strip of sheet material at a plurality of part locations on the strip of sheet material;
- wherein the cleaning station comprises an ablation apparatus configured to selectively ablate at least one first region of a first said flat face of the strip of sheet material, the first region of the first flat face corresponding to at least one of the part locations on the first flat face from which at least one of the parts is cut;
- and
- wherein the cleaning station is configured to not ablate at least one second region of the first flat face, the at least one second region not corresponding to one of the part locations on the first flat face of the strip of sheet material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.