Plate sizing apparatus was developed and installed in the hot plate shop at Kakogawa Works of Kobe Steel Ltd. in March, 1981.
The apparatus consists of five parts: (1) a fixed measuring deck, (2) a movable measuring deck, (3) a spray marker, (4) contollers, and (5) an operation room. It was designed to be semi-automatic system in order to increase flexibility. The system was simply composed, making effective use of laser markers and television cameras.
Its functions are as follows:
(1) Determination of the cutting position of a plate, after checking the front shape.
(2) Marking a cutting line at the position automatically.
(3) Measuring the width and the effective length of the plate.
Adoption of digital position contoller and rack-pinion mechanism have realized high measuring accuracy, that is ±3mm in width, and ±30mm in length.
This apparatus has been contributing to saving man-power and releasing workers from manual works under high temperature environment.
