DE102020117225A1 - Thermal treatment of a number of components - Google Patents

Abstract

Method for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components (5) in a roller hearth furnace (2), the components (5) being placed one after the other with a respective inlet placement (6) in an inlet area (3) of the roller hearth furnace (2) and being processed through the roller hearth furnace ( 2) are moved, further comprising: a) for at least one of the components (5) determining a respective outlet placement (7) in an outlet area (4) of the roller hearth furnace (2) and determining a deviation of the outlet placement (7) thus determined from a target -Outlet placement (8),b) for at least one of the following components (5) determining the respective inlet placement (6) based on the inlet placement (6) of a preceding component (5) and subtracting the in step a) for this preceding component certain deviation. The components (5) are rotated and/or displaced in the inlet area (3) of the roller hearth furnace (2) so that a rotation and/or displacement d he components (5) due to locally different wear of the rollers of the roller hearth furnace (2) is compensated. As a result, the components (5) have the desired position and orientation after passing through the roller hearth furnace (2), so that the components (5) can be fed to further processing in a particularly simple manner. No contact with the components (5) is required for this, so that they cannot be damaged.

Description

The invention relates to a method and a device for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components, in particular steel components for motor vehicles.

Components such as B-pillars for motor vehicles are often thermally treated. For example, a coating can be burned into the component. For this purpose, it is known to move the components through a roller hearth furnace. Such a system has a large number of rollers for transporting the components. Deposits can form on these, for example from the coating of the components. As a result, the coefficient of friction of the rollers can change locally differently. The roller diameters can also change differently locally. As a result, it is possible that the components leave the roller hearth furnace twisted and / or displaced. For the further processing of the components, however, it is necessary that the components are precisely positioned and oriented, for example in order to be able to be picked up by a gripper. For this purpose, it is known to correct the position and the orientation of the components after they have left the roller hearth furnace, for example using guide plates. However, this can damage the components.

It is the object of the present invention, proceeding from the described prior art, to provide a method and a device for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components, in which the components can be correctly placed without damage.

These objects are achieved with the method and the device according to the independent claims. Further advantageous refinements are given in the dependent claims. The features presented in the claims and in the description can be combined with one another in any technologically sensible way.

1. a) für mindestens eines der Bauteile Bestimmen einer jeweiligen Auslaufplatzierung in einem Auslaufbereich des Rollenherdofens und Bestimmen einer Abweichung der so bestimmten Auslaufplatzierung von einer Soll-Auslaufplatzierung,
2. b) für mindestens eines der folgenden Bauteile Festlegen der jeweiligen Einlaufplatzierung basierend auf der Einlaufplatzierung eines vorhergehenden der Bauteile und unter Abzug der in Schritt a) für dieses vorhergehende Bauteil bestimmten Abweichung.

According to the invention, a method for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components in a roller hearth furnace is presented. The components are placed one after the other with a respective entry position in an entry area of the roller hearth furnace and moved through the roller hearth furnace. The procedure also includes:

1. a) for at least one of the components, determining a respective outlet placement in an outlet area of the roller hearth furnace and determining a deviation of the outlet placement determined in this way from a target outlet placement,
2. b) for at least one of the following components, determining the respective entry placement based on the entry placement of a preceding one of the components and subtracting the deviation determined in step a) for this preceding component.

With the method, components, in particular for motor vehicles, can be thermally treated. The components can be B-pillars, for example. The components are preferably steel components. The components can be thermally treated with the method, in particular heated. To do this, the components are moved through the roller hearth furnace. The roller hearth furnace comprises a furnace chamber and a plurality of rollers via which the components can be moved through the furnace chamber. This is also referred to here as moving the components through the roller hearth furnace, even if the roller hearth furnace has components outside the furnace chamber.

The components are moved one after the other through the roller hearth furnace. The components are preferably moved through the roller hearth furnace at a constant distance from one another. Several of the components can be located in the roller hearth furnace at the same time. Before inserting a component into the roller hearth furnace, there is no need to wait until the previous component has left the roller hearth furnace.

The roller hearth furnace also includes an inlet area. The components can be placed in these so that they can then be moved through the furnace chamber (and in this respect through the roller hearth furnace). The inlet area is preferably designed as an inlet table. Furthermore, roller hearth furnace comprises an outlet area in which the components can be removed after passing through the furnace chamber (and in this respect after passing through the roller hearth furnace). The outlet area is preferably designed as an outlet table.

The components are placed individually in the inlet area. This is done with a respective entry placement. The entry placement of a component indicates at which point of the inlet area and with which orientation the respective component is arranged in the inlet area before the transport of this component through the roller hearth furnace begins. The components can in particular be placed in the inlet area with a placement device. In this case, the inlet placement results from a respective setting of the placement device for the component.

After the components have left the roller hearth furnace, the components are available with their respective exit positions. The outlet placement of a component indicates at which point of the outlet area and with which orientation the respective component is arranged in the outlet area after this component has passed through the roller hearth furnace. If the components come to rest after passing through the roller hearth furnace, this is done in the respective exit position. The components can in particular be removed from the inlet area with a removal device and fed to further processing. In this case, the outlet placement corresponds to a required setting of the removal device in order to be able to grasp the respective component.

The entry placements and the exit placements each include a position and / or an orientation. The combination is preferred that the inlet placements and the outlet placements each include a position and an orientation. The inlet placements and the outlet placements are preferably each indicated with a two-dimensional vector and / or an angle of rotation.

Due to the locally different wear of the rollers, the exit placement of the components can deviate from a target exit placement. The target exit placement is the desired exit placement. Ideally, all components are in the target exit position after they have passed through the roller hearth furnace. As a result, the components can be particularly easily removed from the outlet area by a removal device. The target outlet placement can consist, for example, in that a component is arranged in the center of the outlet area and that the axes of the component are parallel or perpendicular to the axes of the roller hearth furnace, so that the component is not “twisted”. The target outlet placement can be used as the zero point for specifying the outlet placement, so that the target outlet placement comprises a two-dimensional zero vector and the angle of rotation zero.

With the method it can be achieved that the exit placement of the components is particularly close to the target exit placement. To do this, it is not necessary to correct the outlet placement of the components, for example using guide plates. In particular, no contact with the components is required, so that damage is excluded. Instead, the infeed placement is determined in such a way that, for example, the effects of locally different wear of the rollers are compensated for. If it is found that the components have been rotated 10 ° clockwise from the roller hearth furnace and left the roller hearth furnace displaced by 5 cm to the right, the following components are rotated 10 ° counterclockwise and displaced 5 cm to the left and placed in the inlet area. As a result, the twist and shift is compensated so that the target run-out position is achieved.

In step a), the respective outlet placement is determined for at least one of the components. This can be done by optically detecting the components in the run-out area, for example using a camera and corresponding evaluation software. In addition, the deviation of the discontinued position determined in this way from the target discontinued position is determined. The deviation can be specified, for example, in the form of an angle of rotation and / or a two-dimensional displacement vector. The exit placement can be determined directly relative to the target exit placement. This is particularly the case when the target run-out placement is defined as a zero vector and zero angle of rotation. In this respect, the determination of the exit position and the deviation can take place at the same time. In the understanding of the terms used here, it is not possible to determine the deviation without determining the run-out placement.

In step b) the respective entry placement is determined for at least one of the following components based on the entry placement of a preceding one of the components and subtracting the deviation determined in step a) for this preceding component.

• für mindestens eines der folgenden Bauteile Festlegen der jeweiligen Einlaufplatzierung, indem die Einlaufplatzierung eines vorhergehenden der Bauteile entgegen der für dieses Bauteil bestimmten Abweichung verändert wird.

The inlet placement for the following component can be determined in step b), for example, by subtracting the two-dimensional vector of the deviation from the two-dimensional vector of the inlet placement of the preceding component and / or subtracting the angle of rotation of the deviation from the angle of rotation of the inlet placement of the preceding component will. In this respect, the deviation from the entry position of the previous component is deducted. There is therefore a correction of the inlet placement that counteracts the determined deviation. In other words, step b) can be formulated as follows:

• for at least one of the following components, determining the respective entry placement by changing the entry placement of a preceding component against the deviation determined for this component.

It is sufficient that step a) is carried out for a first component and step b) for a second component which is treated after the first component. Whether and how further components are treated before, in between or afterwards is irrelevant in the general configuration of the method described here. While a deviation from the target outlet placement is accepted for the first component, the outlet placement of the second component has been corrected.

The correction described is not possible for the components which are the first to be moved through the roller hearth furnace after the roller hearth furnace has been put into operation and which are introduced into the roller hearth furnace before another component has left the roller hearth furnace. But this fact can be neglected. On the one hand, it can be assumed that there will be no deviation from the target discontinuation position at the time of commissioning. On the other hand, individual reject components can be accepted.

Step a) is preferably carried out for a large number of the components. The more components there are, the more precisely the deviation from the target outlet position can be corrected. Step a) is preferably carried out at constant intervals, for example for every tenth or every fifth component.

In step b), the deviation and the entry position of one of the preceding components is used. This does not have to be the immediately preceding component. This would also not be possible at all if the components were moved through the roller hearth furnace at such a distance from one another that several components are located in the roller hearth furnace at the same time.

Some of the components can be designed as test components. The test components are indeed moved through the roller hearth furnace and, in this respect, are treated thermally just like all other components. However, the test components are not processed further as a product. In one example, step a) is only carried out for the test components.

In a preferred embodiment of the method, step a) and / or step b) are carried out for each of the components.

It goes without saying that step b) cannot be carried out for the components which are first moved through the roller hearth furnace after the roller hearth furnace has been put into operation and which are introduced into the roller hearth furnace before another component has left the roller hearth furnace. This fact should be neglected here.

If step b) is carried out for each component, the run-out positions of all components will be particularly close to the target run-out position.

It is preferred that both step a) and step b) are carried out for each of the components. In this case, the exit placement is continuously corrected so that the exit placement of all components is as close as possible to the target exit placement.

In a further preferred embodiment of the method, the inlet placement and the deviation of the preceding component determined in step a), for which the deviation was last determined in accordance with step a), are used in step b).

In this embodiment, the most up-to-date information available on the entry placement and deviation of a preceding component is used to determine the entry placement of a component. This does not have to refer to the immediately preceding component. This would also not be possible at all if the components were moved through the roller hearth furnace at such a distance from one another that several components are located in the roller hearth furnace at the same time. Rather, in this embodiment the deviation of the outlet placement of a first component is determined and the inlet placement of a second component is determined on the basis of the deviation thus determined and the inlet placement of the first component. The second component can then be introduced into the roller hearth furnace. Additional components can be moved through the roller hearth furnace between the first and the second component. However, these components have not yet left the roller hearth furnace when the second component is introduced into the roller hearth furnace, so that the information on these additional components cannot yet be used for the second component. The same applies if step a) is not carried out for the intermediate components and no information is available in this respect.

In a further preferred embodiment of the method, the components have a coating.

As described, the method can compensate for the twisting and / or displacement of the components due to locally different wear of the rollers of the roller hearth furnace. Such wear can arise in particular due to a coating on the components. Accordingly, the process is particularly suitable for coated components. The coating can be an Al / Si coating, for example.

In a further preferred embodiment of the method, the components are identical to one another.

A rotation and / or displacement of the components within the roller hearth furnace can in particular depend on the size and / or the shape of the components. A correction is basically also possible on the basis of information obtained for a differently designed component. In the present embodiment, however, all components are designed identically, so that only information can be used that have been obtained for components with the same design. Correspondingly, the correction of the rotation and / or displacement in the present embodiment is particularly accurate.

In a further preferred embodiment, the method is interrupted for maintenance purposes if the deviation determined in step a) exceeds a predetermined threshold.

There can be one or more thresholds. If the deviation is specified as a two-dimensional vector and as an angle of rotation, a respective threshold can be specified for the individual components of the vector, for the amount of the vector and / or for the angle of rotation. If one of these thresholds is exceeded, the process is interrupted. Then, for example, roles can be exchanged or cleaned.

• ■ einen Rollenherdofen, durch den die Bauteile nacheinander bewegt werden können,
• ■ eine Platzierungseinrichtung zum Platzieren der Bauteile mit einer jeweiligen Einlaufplatzierung in einen Einlaufbereich des Rollenherdofens,
• ■ eine Messeinrichtung zum Bestimmen einer jeweiligen Auslaufplatzierung der Bauteile in einem Auslaufbereich des Rollenherdofens, und
• ■ eine Steuereinrichtung, die dazu bestimmt und eingerichtet ist,
  1. a) für mindestens eines der Bauteile anhand eines Signals der Messeinrichtung eine Abweichung der jeweiligen Auslaufplatzierung von einer Soll-Auslaufplatzierung zu bestimmen, und
  2. b) für mindestens eines der folgenden Bauteile die jeweilige Einlaufplatzierung basierend auf der Einlaufplatzierung eines vorhergehenden der Bauteile und unter Abzug der in a) für dieses vorhergehende Bauteil bestimmten Abweichung festzulegen und an die Platzierungseinrichtung zu übermitteln.

As a further aspect, a device for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components is presented. The device comprises:

• ■ a roller hearth furnace through which the components can be moved one after the other,
• ■ a placement device for placing the components with a respective inlet placement in an inlet area of the roller hearth furnace,
• ■ a measuring device for determining a respective outlet placement of the components in an outlet area of the roller hearth furnace, and
• ■ a control device that is designed and set up to
  1. a) to determine, for at least one of the components, a deviation of the respective outlet placement from a target outlet placement using a signal from the measuring device, and
  2. b) for at least one of the following components, the respective entry placement based on the entry placement of a preceding one of the components and subtracting the deviation determined in a) for this preceding component to be determined and transmitted to the placement device.

The described particular advantages and design features of the method can be used and transferred to the device, and vice versa. The device is preferably intended and set up for operation in accordance with the method. The method is preferably carried out with the device. The outlet placement can be determined according to step a) using the measuring device. The placement device preferably places the components in the inlet area in accordance with the inlet placement determined in accordance with step b).

• 1a bis1c: Drei Visualisierungen eines erfindungsgemäßen Verfahrens mit einer erfindungsgemäßen Vorrichtung zum thermischen Behandeln einer Mehrzahl von Bauteilen.

The invention is explained in more detail below with reference to the figures. The figures show a particularly preferred exemplary embodiment to which, however, the invention is not limited. The figures and the proportions shown therein are only schematic. Show it:

• 1a until 1c : Three visualizations of a method according to the invention with a device according to the invention for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components.

the 1a until 1c each show a device 1 for the thermal treatment of a number of components 5 . Nine identical components are exemplary 5 drawn, of which only two are provided with a reference number. The device 1 includes a roller hearth furnace 2 through which the components 5 can be moved one after the other. The device 1 further comprises a placement device 9 for placing the components 5 with a respective entry placement 6th in a run-in area 3 of the roller hearth furnace 2 . The device also includes 1 a measuring device 10 to determine a respective exit position 7th of the components 5 in a run-out area 4th of the roller hearth furnace 2 . The device also includes 1 a control device 11th that came with the placement facility 9 and the measuring device 10 connected is.

With the device 1 can the components 5 are thermally treated by the components 5 one after the other with a respective entry placement 6th in the inlet area 3 of the roller hearth furnace 2 be placed and through the roller hearth furnace 2 be moved.

Ideally, the components pass through the roller hearth furnace along a straight line without twisting 2 emotional. Is in 1a to recognize. For the discontinued placement 7th corresponds to the target exit position 8th what about that in the run-out area 4th located component 5 can be seen.

1. a) Bestimmen der Auslaufplatzierung 7 des Bauteils 5 im Auslaufbereich 4 des Rollenherdofens 2 und Bestimmen einer Abweichung der so bestimmten Auslaufplatzierung 7 von der Soll-Auslaufplatzierung 8,
2. b) für ein folgendes der Bauteile 5 Festlegen der jeweiligen Einlaufplatzierung 6 basierend auf der Einlaufplatzierung 6 des vorhergehenden Bauteils 5, für das Schritt a) zuletzt durchgeführt wurde, und unter Abzug der in Schritt a) für dieses vorhergehende Bauteil bestimmten Abweichung.

Due to locally different wear of the rollers of the roller hearth furnace 2 the components can be twisted and / or shifted 5 come. This is especially true for coated components 5 the case. Such a situation is in 1 b shown. That in the run-out area 4th located component 5 is opposite the target exit position 8th twisted clockwise and shifted down to the left. To compensate for such a shift and twist, all components 5 performed the following steps:

1. a) Determination of the exit position 7th of the component 5 in the run-out area 4th of the roller hearth furnace 2 and determining a deviation of the run-out placement thus determined 7th from the target exit position 8th ,
2. b) for a following of the components 5 Determination of the respective entry placement 6th based on entry placement 6th of the previous component 5 , for which step a) was carried out last, and subtracting the deviation determined in step a) for this previous component.

In 1c it can be seen that the component 5 in the inlet area 3 compared to 1a and 1 b is shifted and twisted. This twist and shift is the in 1 b shown deviation of the exit position 7th from the target exit position 8th opposite. This causes the in 1c the component 5 in the run-out area 4th in the target exit position 8th is present.

If the deviation determined in step a) is greater than a predefined threshold, the method can be interrupted for maintenance purposes.

The components 5 are rotated and / or shifted in this way into the inlet area 3 of the roller hearth furnace 2 placed that a rotation and / or displacement of the components 5 due to locally different wear of the rollers of the roller hearth furnace 2 is balanced. As a result, the components 5 after passing through the roller hearth furnace 2 the desired position and orientation so that the components 5 can be fed to further processing in a particularly simple manner. There is also no contact with the components 5 required so that they cannot be damaged.

List of reference symbols

1

contraption

2

Roller hearth furnace

3

Inlet area

4th

Run-out area

5

Component

6th

Entry placement

7th

Discontinued placement

8th

Target discontinuation placement

9

Placement facility

10

Measuring device

11th

Control device

Claims (7)

Method for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components (5) in a roller hearth furnace (2), the components (5) being placed one after the other with a respective inlet position (6) in an inlet area (3) of the roller hearth furnace (2) and through the roller hearth furnace ( 2) be moved, further comprising: a) for at least one of the components (5) determining a respective outlet placement (7) in an outlet area (4) of the roller hearth furnace (2) and determining a deviation of the outlet placement (7) thus determined from a target outlet placement (8), b) for at least one of the following components (5) determining the respective inlet placement (6) based on the inlet placement (6) of a preceding one of the components (5) and subtracting the deviation determined in step a) for this preceding component. Procedure according to Claim 1 , wherein step a) and / or step b) is carried out for each of the components (5). Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein in step b) the inlet placement (6) and the deviation of the preceding component (5) determined in step a) are used, for which the deviation according to step a) was last determined. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the components (5) have a coating. Method according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the components (5) are identical to one another. Method according to one of the preceding claims, the method being interrupted for maintenance purposes if the deviation determined in step a) exceeds a predetermined threshold. Device (1) for the thermal treatment of a plurality of components (5), comprising: ■ a roller hearth furnace (2) through which the components (5) can be moved one after the other, ■ a placement device (9) for placing the components (5) with a respective inlet placement (6) in an inlet area (3) of the roller hearth furnace (2), ■ a measuring device (10) for determining a respective outlet placement (7) of the components (5) in an outlet area (4) of the roller hearth furnace (2), and A control device (11) which is intended and set up to a) a deviation for at least one of the components (5) on the basis of a signal from the measuring device (10) to determine the respective outlet placement (7) from a target outlet placement (8), and b) for at least one of the following components the respective inlet placement (6) based on the inlet placement (6) of a preceding one of the components (5) and subtracting the in a) to determine the deviation determined for this previous component (5) and to transmit it to the placement device (9).

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