A turret roll forming machine includes at least one turret assembly carrying multiple rows of tooling (e.g., forming rollers), rotatable about an axis to selectively align rows of tooling with an input or output. A transmission is accessible from an exterior of the turret assembly without disassembling of the turret assembly to perform a changeover of roll tooling and/or maintenance on gears, bearings, or shafts of the transmission. Thus, a chain drive may be employed, advantageously accommodating differing rotational speeds for top and bottom forming rollers of each pair of forming rollers, e.g. to reduce roll scuffing. Pairs of forming rollers may be provided as cassettes, which are removably coupleable to the turret assembly allowing quick and easy reconfiguration and/or servicing, minimizing negative effects of changeover. The turret assembly may be a unitary structure (e.g., a weldment) improving rigidity and increasing accuracy of roll forming operations.

An arcuate mounting bracket fabrication system includes a powered roller conveyor for receiving blanks to be formed into arcuate connection brackets. A roll form assembly received the blanks and includes a plurality of roll forming dies for incrementally bending portions of blanks to form straight flanges terminating in lips. An entry assembly carried by the powered roller conveyor positions the blanks entering the roll form assembly. An arcuate flange forming apparatus for forming arcuate flanges in the roll formed blank receives roll formed blanks from a transfer mechanism.

A roll stamping apparatus includes sets of rollers rotating while facing each other so as to press opposite surfaces of a material which is continuously supplied to move between the rollers; and molding portions having a stamping structure applied to outer surfaces of the sets of rollers so as to mold the material, wherein a plurality of sets of rollers are disposed in a movement direction of the material, the molding portions of the sets of rollers are formed to sequentially change a cross section of the material in the movement direction of the material, wherein at least one of the sets of rollers before a final set of rollers through which the material finally passes is a set of over-molding rollers having molding portions of which a length in a circumferential direction is longer than a length of the molding portions of the final set of rollers.

The invention relates to a device (10) for the flexible roll forming of a semifinished product (12), in particular a rolled sheet, to form a profile (12′, 12″) with a cross section varying along the longitudinal axis thereof and/or with a varying longitudinal axis. The device (10) has a frame (14) and a number of supporting devices (16), which are carried by the frame (14). The supporting devices (16) are each movable in a translational manner in relation to the frame (14) and rotatably mounted. The device (10) also has a number of profiling units (18), which each have a pair (20) of rotatably mounted rollers (20′, 20″), between which a rolling gap (102) remains. According to the invention, precisely two profiling units (18) are arranged in a rotatably mounted manner on each supporting device (16).

A method for joining edges and/or surfaces of a profile in a profiling installation for longitudinally forming a virtually endless material strip into an at least partially closed profile shape. The material strip or profile is formed roll forming tools into a profile which is closed or partially closed, and is fixed in a joining zone, with a longitudinally running joining seam being formed. The profile passes in the joining zone through a joining roller arrangement and/or planar joining arrangement to feed the profile to a joining point and to stabilize the profile there, and/or to ensure that it is dimensionally stable during and after joining. Forces or magnitudes of force components which act on the profile from at least one of the joining rollers and/or a subsection of the planar joining arrangement are detected in the joining zone. A planar joining arrangement and a profiling installation are also provided.

A method for producing a crossmember for a vehicle prepares a workpiece having different thicknesses and a preliminary contour from a metal sheet of uniform thickness by flat roll forming to achieve different local thicknesses. The method cuts out the workpiece, and bending roll forms the workpiece to form a crossmember with a cross section having at least two flanges opposite one another, and a web situated between said flanges. The distance between the flanges is not constant along a longitudinal extent of the crossmember, and a thickness profile at least of the web is determined by the flat roll forming. The local thicknesses and the preliminary contour are such that a geometrical shape of the crossmember corresponds to a predetermined geometrical shape with different thicknesses and heights of the web and differently shaped regions of the flanges along the longitudinal extent of the crossmember.

An apparatus and a method for producing an elongated profiled part, in which a profiled strip is produced from a flat strip by rolling and the profiled strip is embossed in sections, by means of which at least one longitudinal section of the profiled strip is offset relative to at least one other longitudinal section in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal direction of the profiled strip, and with which method the strip is trimmed in such a way that, after the embossing, the longitudinal sections that are offset relative to each other have different cross-sections. In order to increase the reproducibility of the method, before the profiling, the flat strip is trimmed in such a way that by means of the embossing of the trimmed and profiled strip, the longitudinal sections that are offset relative to each other have different cross-sections.

A flexible roll-die forming machine for variable cross-section parts includes: a feeding device and a flexible roll-die forming unit; wherein the flexible roll-die forming unit includes at least a set of flexible roll-die forming devices; when two or more sets of the flexible roll-die forming devices are provided, the flexible roll-die forming devices are connected in sequence; wherein the feeding device is arranged at a front end of the flexible roll-die forming unit and is connected to an adjacent flexible roll-die forming device. The present invention effectively solves problems that conventional flexible roll-die forming machines are not able to produce narrow part with variable cross-sections, and the forming accuracy is poor. The present invention also reduces the amount of shafts controlled by servo motors, so as to simplify the controlling system, improve system operation reliability and simplify maintenance.

Provided is a method of manufacturing a pipe including a large-diameter portion, a small-diameter portion, and a reduced diameter portion connecting the large-diameter portion and the small-diameter portion, the method comprising: forming a metal plate member into a U-shaped member having a U-shaped cross section; and forming the U-shaped member into a shape of the pipe. The U-shaped member includes: a curved portion facing an opening between both edges of the U-shaped cross section; and two facing side walls continued from the curved portion. An opening degree of the two facing side walls in a portion to form the small-diameter portion is larger than an opening degree of the two facing side walls in a portion to form the large-diameter portion.

A plate-shaped workpiece forming method of post-machining a pocket (3) on a curved inner surface of a plate-shaped workpiece (2) in a state where the plate-shaped workpiece (2) curved by a curving machine (10) is spread flat. The method includes a curving step (A) of setting a net curve radius (R.sub.0) obtained by adding a curve radius contraction amount (R.sub.1) due to spring-in to a finished curve radius (R) of a plate-shaped workpiece (2), taking into account an amount of contraction of the curve radius of the plate-shaped workpiece (2) between before and after machining of a pocket (3) due to spring-in, and curving the plate-shaped workpiece (2) so as to achieve the net curve radius (R.sub.0); and a pocket machining step of post-machining the pocket (3) by flatly spreading the curved plate-shaped workpiece (2).