Modern trailers are often made out of aluminum tippers. The production of these structures is complicated due to the large products that have to be welded. We have developed a special robotic welding system for this task.
The robot systems supplied by KRANENDONK communicates with the CAD/CAM system used by the company. In short this means limited or no work preparation is needed. Additional to this, changes within production order or even in the product itself are easily made. Additionally a product configurator can be developed to achieve the highest level of automation.
In order to access the tubs and trailers from the inside or outside, a robot is suspended from a carriage that offers three additional degrees of freedom (in X-, Y- and Z-direction). The robot itself is small, but still a full six-axis industrial welding robot. The Aluminum Tub Welding Cell is designed to weld aluminum tubs in a flow direction.
In order to accommodate for slanted or bent profiles and/or plates, tactile seam tracking system through the physical touch by sensor tip is used during welding. Tactile seam tracking system is especially developed by us for aluminum welding application. This sensor is mounted with the welding torch and leads the torch to the seam (weld path). The position of torch is continuously corrected by the feedback of the variation of sensor signal to robot.