• Easy Design of new sections
• Calculation of forming steps
• Re-engineering of existing designs
• Scanning of templates
• Administration of cross sections (data base management system)
• Retrieval algorithms for similar cross-sections
• design of wire cross-sections
• CAD/CAM interfaces

A lot of company-specific experience about forming strategies is hidden in old manufacturing drawings and toolings/templates. Re-engineering of these strategies allows a recreation of know-how fallen into oblivion. COPRA® Massive Forming now offers a way for:

• archiving your hidden knowledge from the past  (scanning and storing of your templates)
• retrieving of respective know-how by using intelligent retrieval algorithms  (similarity check etc.)
• Quality control of your tooling and templates by on-line comparison of  scanned contour and geometry stored in the data base
• easy way for new designs.

COPRA® Massive Forming - 5 easy Steps to a new design:

1st step:
The wire- or profile cross section desired is being designed using a CAD system (CoCreate ME10 or AutoCAD) and imported into the COPRA® data base.

2nd step:
The user defines the number of forming steps.
COPRA® calculates the intermediate forming steps taking into account the user inputs. A main feature is the fact that every contour point of the cross section will be accurately mapped on the contour of the following forming step. Even a percental change of the cross-sectional area can be chosen.

3rd step:  
Of course, the calculated forming steps can be modified using the functionality of your CAD system. This is important, if the user wants to change the current cross-section to a special shape wanted - due to company or machine dependent restrictions.

4th step:
Supplementary changes (according to step 3) might change the percental relationship between the different cross-sections. A special COPRA® function will put all forming steps into the right proportions again.

5th step:  
The roll tools are being designed using a CAD system like ME10 or AutoCAD.

Administration of different cross-sections (e.g. wire sections)
The final cross-sections and drawings are stored into a data base management system:
ADFinder for ME10 (or AutoManager if AutoCAD is being used). This allows a quick retrieval of repetitive parts or drawings. CADFinder offers a retrieval function tailored to find even similar sections. Also updating service and release management are taken into account.

Scanning of templates (required for the roll manufacturing)
A common problem is the fact that most of the drawings differ from the existing rolls - due to modifications being done in the past. This means that it makes much more sense to scan and archive the templates itself rather than the drawings:
the COPRA® Massive Forming software package includes a tailored software module for scanning the contours of templates and archiving in the data base management system.

By the way: data M also offers a solution to scan even completed roll tools. The COPRA® Roll Scanner.