transfluid® ENERGY FLOW BROUGHT INTO SHAPE.

Extremely long busbars cut and bent automatically.

transfluid^® ROBOTIC BENDING TECHNOLOGY

Bending busbars for electric cars is a crucial step that affects the efficiency and performance of these vehicles. Precision, choice of materials and innovative technologies are crucial to ensure that the power distribution systems in electric cars operate reliably and efficiently. While the automotive industry continues to grow and develop, the technology used to produce busbars for electric cars also continues to advance to meet the increasing demands.

The bending and forming specialists transfluid have now presented a key development step at FABTECH 2023. Transfluid have developed a bending robot specially to meet the requirements for the production of busbars, capable of processing busbars with a cross-section of up to 60 mm² and a stretched length of up to 3,000 mm.

The processing of such lengths is currently only possible with machines from a few manufacturers and can usually only be executed manually and as one-off productions. Far too time-consuming for the demands of the fast-paced automotive industry.

T BEND - Robotic bending technology:

Bending processes on tubes, as well as end processing and adding of components is an option

Intuitive operation
Eight synchronized, fully electric axes
Handling included
Bending at every position

The robot as a machine

The transfluid robot, which is equipped with a special bending head, breaks new ground in several respects and enables automated production of large quantities for the first time.

Delicate busbars, which pose a challenge to handling, bending and positioning due to their low intrinsic stability, can be bent reliably and with repeatable results.

In addition to the actual bending operation, the bending robot takes over the material handling for loading and unloading. This saves space and costs, as there is no need for additional handling systems.

The possibility of bending long busbars.

The decisive factor is the combination of the bending head and the use of controlled supports. These enable a constant support of the workpiece during the bending cycle.

The robot-assisted bending system clamps the components in the middle and thus halves the respective processing length of the busbar. The resulting advantage is the improved stability of the workpiece during the bending process.

By positioning the bending head instead of the workpiece on the individual bending positions, vibrations and torsions are removed from the process. This ensures repeatable and fast production of the components.

Complex shapes and unique variations.

The engineers at transfluid have also equipped the bending head with a special feature. It has been equipped with bending tools on both sides, which enables both right and left bending with one single clamping and, due to the rotational capability of the head, it can produce complex shapes and unique variations of the bending geometries.

The tools, which have been specially developed for bending busbars, enable significant advantages over other systems in combination with a clamping unit that can be rotated 360°.

This combined tool concept allows bending on both the wide and short sides of the busbar without additional changes to the machining plane.

Optimized twisting of the workpiece.

The speed benefits achieved in this way are further increased by the possibility of twisting the workpiece.

Since this twisting is carried out with the help of the aforementioned clamping unit (chuck) during the bending process, the busbar does not need to move to a new station. In the end, this means a further optimization of the cycle time.

t cut- the specially developed cutting system

Upstream of the bending process is another innovation from transfluid: the t cut cutting system specially developed for busbars. Thanks to the horizontally arranged coil unwinding unit, large lengths of material can be fed into the process. After passing through the straightening unit, busbars are separated into equal or different lengths and then discharged already sorted.

The soft aluminium and copper material is cut precisely by a special knife up to a thickness of 40 x 5 mm.

Precise cutting at high speed

The servo-controlled feed enables the cutting of highly accurate lengths at high speed. Time is also saved when setting up the machine, as dimension-dependent adjustments during a material change can be quickly adjusted, e.g. using adjusting screws on the straightening unit or adjustable clamping levers on the guide rails.

Mechanical set-up is no longer necessary and redundant.

Expanded Software - Programming was yesterday

The transfluid t cut cutting software takes over the entire process efficiently and with reproducible results. It interacts perfectly with the t bend bending software, which controls the bending robot. This fully integrated transfluid control system eliminates the need for manual teaching of the robot, a clear benefit for the customer. As with a normal bending machine, all the necessary settings are made using the convenient transfluid software solutions t project and t bend control. The only difference is that the software has now been expanded to include the possibility of processing geometries from flat material and also simulating these bending processes in advance.

Open for third-party products.

The transfluid’s own software modules also make possible the integration of third-party products. This gives the customer the option of integrating and controlling measuring systems for quality assurance, as well as other additional processing units.

production samples

Busbars

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