Roll forming process with heat source locations for forming a metal article with selective thermal forming/flanging/trimming operations

An assembly for forming a metal article, comprising:

• a coil steel roll is provided for feeding a continuous sheet of said roll through a series of passes corresponding to a series of roll forming operations for progressively shaping the steel sheet between initial planar and finished multi-sided cross sectional shapes;
• one or more heat elements provided along a travel path of a sheet prior to a first of the roll passes, said heating elements being provided in a linearly arrayed fashion to align with one or more desired bend axes in order to form a finished product from the steel roll;
• a further heating element located at a downstream location in order to apply additional targeted heating to one or more further selected bend or fold line locations of the article at an intermediate stage;
• and
• the article being advanced through a further succeeding roll forming pass in which a final cross sectional shape is imparted to the linearly fed article to achieve the finished product.