SWEBEND REVOLUTIONISING ROLLER COASTER PRODUCTION

The world has been amused by the thrill, adrenaline and stomach twisting sensation of riding roller coasters ever since the 18^th Century when the world’s first roller coasters, called “Russian Mountains” were invented. Today’s roller coasters run, roll, spin and drop faster, all to provide a more profound experience for the riders!

As a result the engineers and bending machine operators who build these brilliant attractions have yet tighter calculations and more challenging bending operations to perform. Above all, the smoothness of the bent tracks needs to be flawless to provide the best riding experience without uncomfortable skips.

Consequently, to meet these ever increasing demands – better bending machines are needed, a challenge which the SweBend team has risen to with their world leading SEVEN CNC technology and the SB3S-240, a section bending machine combined with a push and turn unit, bending tough sections in 3D.

The SB3S-240 takes the tedious task of bending twelve metre long pipes and reduces completion time from more than one day to less than one hour, simultaneously, the risk of dents that compromise the smoothness is removed. Instead of bending in a multitude of passes, with a designated radius control after each pass, the operators can now simulate the whole operation with SweBend Simulations. The SEVEN CNC system calculates, operates and executes the whole bending procedure, with the design assistant ADAM setting up the process and the precision bending assistant IRMA fine-tuning for unexpected material behaviour.

However, the most revolutionising aspect of this bending operation is the simultaneous bending of sections of this size in three dimensions. Only bending machines from SweBend with this precision and simplified user-interface can handle tasks of this difficulty and to achieve this, a vast understanding of tolerances (error-margins), statistics, quality components and profound bending physics is required.

Standard production time reduced by 88%

A twelve hundred metre long roller coaster with double pipes needs two hundred and forty pipes to be bent. Calculated by our client, this would take their current production four months to complete. In contrast, working a normal two shift, this feat will be finished in just 15 days with the SB3S-240 3D Bending machine providing an 88% reduction of production time.

Imagine the possibilities of delivering more roller coasters and faster! SweBend finished and delivered this machine at the end of 2018 and production is already underway on another machine for a different customer. One delivered, plenty to go!

Reproduced with permission from www.swebend.com

The original article can be viewed here: https://www.swebend.com/revolutionizing-roller-coaster/