AMBA all-in-one machine manufactures complex-shaped tube

Aachener Maschinenbau GmbH (AMBA) offers new all-in-one machines for producing cold-formed tubes. These machines are the first in the world to produce tubes with varying cross sections in just one continuous cycle, the manufacturer says.

According to the company, the first tube manufacturer to use one of these machines has increased the production rate by a factor of 10 while reducing the costs of production. In this application, the machine makes shafts for car seats. Over their length, these shafts feature six sections of three different diameters. The seven-stage cold-forming process, finish rolling, and marking are performed fully automatically by one machine. The tubes leave the machine ready to be installed, requiring no additional machining.

All process steps, from the automatic feeding of the input stock out of a high-capacity storage system to the finished tube ready to be installed, are automated. This reduces the need for human intervention and allows for lower tooling costs and the elimination of metal chip scrap.

The cold-forming process imparts better tensile strength properties to the tube than hot forming, the company says, and the finished tube has a consistent wall thickness over its entire length, even at the transitions between different cross sections.

While the cold-formed tubes produced on the all-in-one machines have thinner walls than hot-formed tubes, they generally have the same mechanical properties. The machines can make tubes with diameters up to nearly 2 in.