SU-EEE Roll Former Profile Control - MEng Project

[ManeshPatel]

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Contact Information:

Country:  United Kingdom
Year Submitted: 2018
University:  Swansea University – College of Engineering – Electrical and Electronic Engineering
List of Team Members (with year of graduation): Manesh Patel, Alex Cook, Rhys Davies, Matt Cousins (2018 – Graduation
Faculty Advisers: Augustine Egwebe, David Moody
Main Contact Email Address: 800239@swansea.ac.uk

Project Information:

Title: Roll Forming Steel Profiling - Quality Control Automation

Description:   To develop and offer a control system that allows real time feedback and either autonomous adjustment, or operator instruction, for maintaining the dimensional quality of roll formed products, as indicated by our industrial sponsor Transicon Ltd.

Products:     

National Instruments:  

• CompactRIO – cRIO9035
• Power Supply – NIPS-15
• I/O Card – NI9381
• D-Type Sub Connector – NI9923
• Motion Control Interface Cards – 779944-01
• Stepper Drives – 780097-01
• Stepper Motors 12nm – 780096-01
• Communications Bundle – 780552-01

Other:

• Logitech C930e 1080p webcam
• Class II Red Laser
• Raspberry Pi

The Challenge:

• Non-contact dimensional analysis of the roll formed profile as it exits the roll forming line
• Comparison to the ideal profile and quantification of errors
• Ability to attribute dimensional errors to specific stations in the roll forming line
• Output of corrective action required to adjust the respective station to bring the dimension into line with the ideal
• Increase dimensional repeatability of production line
• Reduce scrappage caused by out of tolerance product, and from cutting samples
• Reduced setting and measuring time (shift time)

Why NI?
NI provided a great resource for LabVIEW support and a wide range of motors with different Torque values. The team used all services offered and available during the product selection process and the development phase.

The Solution:

What is the project about?

This project centres around the concept of developing a control system to automate the process of quality control for a steel profile forming production line. The main part of the project serves as a bench prototyping phase so that the team can demonstrate/prove the design concept and its potential industrial applications to both the industrial and academic stakeholders involved in the project. The control system uses a controller purchased from National Instruments called the CompactRIO; the team also purchased drive cards, motors and power supplies, most of which are housed in an enclosure and are protected by a safety circuit consisting of E-stop and reset switches. The motors that are used in this project have two functions, firstly, to adjust/correct the rolling stages that are responsible for errors and secondly, to operate a linear actuator, the linear actuator has the prototype sensor mounted to it and is used to monitor the output steel profile to detect potential errors.

Why was it undertaken?

Fundamentally, the project is being sponsored so that the industrial stakeholders can assess the viability of the product and its potential as for some of their clients. Process control and automation has many advantages, however there are many additional advantages that are specific to the product: reduced scrap and consequently wasted steel, reduced shift time spent on quality control, reduce production line down time, increase production line profitability. There were many different elements to the project and it required a lot of research, there was a lot of scope and potential for the team to get exposure to the full project life cycle. The team combined mechanical, electrical, software and safety design elements whilst working towards a specification dictated by industrial and academic supervision.

What are the major findings or results?

The team were able to prototype a sensor that pans across a section of the formed profile using a linear actuator, it is made up of a webcam and a laser spot sensor, the sensor is operated on a Raspberry Pi which communicates with the CompactRIO via a TCP/IP server. The motor that operates the linear actuator is run using LabVIEW and LabVIEW is also used to operate the motors that are responsible for the roller height adjustment. The design work carried out by the team were certified by the industrial sponsors and the final product worked as was requested and expected and the team proved the concept. The team has gained experience in various software packages to complete this project: CorelDRAW and LabVIEW for mechanical design, Multisim and MATLAB for simulation, LabVIEW and Python for coding.

• Please see blog space for video (link below)
• It is now fully functioning
• 652 Hours went into the project
• To improve the project further the team could spend more time on the self-learning stage of the code but this would have only been viable if more rolling stages were available to prototype with.

Link to Video

http://www.swansea.ac.uk/engineering/electrical/national-instruments/

Attach Poster

(30 in. x 38 in.) and LabVIEW Code
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