Horizontal Welding Systems are used to automate the process of welding flange bars to a web plate to make prefabricated I-Beams. These systems consist of a variety of equipment including flange and web plate loading gantries, infeed and outfeed conveyors, web splice station, tack station with power unit, and automatic pull through welding fixture with power unit. Automatic welding pull through fixtures use Lincoln® Power Wave AC/DC-1000 welders with Power Feed 10A Controller wire feed system (floor mounted de-reelers) and include flux recovery units.

Two infeed web loading gantries are used to load 20-foot (6m) long precut web plates onto the infeed conveyor. One side of the web plate must be straight and placed on the datum side of the system. The other side of the web plate may contain a incline in either or both directions of no more than 15 degrees from the datum. These gantries are manually operated. Both gantries are used in conjunction with a weld splice station to produce 40-foot (12m) long web beam sections. After loading the web plates on the conveyors, the two pieces of plate are spliced together and conveyed down line to the flange gantry loading conveyor.

The flange gantry is capable of loading 40-foot (12m) long sections of flange bar. Two flanges are loaded onto the conveyor. This conveyor contains vertical magnetic rollers to hold the flange bar vertically on each side of the web plate. It also contains web lift rollers to lift the web plate horizontally. The web plate is lifted to the flange bar midpoint. These three plates are then fitted and welded at the Tack Station.

The web Tack Station is used to tack fit the leading edge of the beam for entrance into the pull-through-welder. The tack station uses hydraulic horizontal pushers and vertical clamps to position the plates before welding and contains it own power unit. After tack welding the leading edges of the flanges to the web, the I-beam is conveyed down-line to the pull-through-welder.

The pull-through-welder (PTW) welding station automatically synchronizes the infeed conveyor, weld station (pull through welder), and outfeed conveyor drive systems. The pull through welder is the master drive with a variable speed from 0 to 120 inches (0 to 3m) per minute. This unit will drive, form the flange plates to the web, and weld both flanges to the web all in one pass. During the forming process, it will allow one of the two flanges (moveable side welder opposite the datum side) to rise or descend a maximum 15 degrees perpendicular to the system datum line. The beam clamp actually bends and forms the flange to the contours of the web. The drive wheels maintains a constant clamp pressure between flange and web during weld regardless of positive or negative incline on the flange. The welder copper ground shoes on the moveable side are designed with a twin pivot pneumatic controlled system that provides full contact as incline changes.

The welding process used is a twin-wire submerged-arc weld. Flux recovery units recover unused flux from the welder, remove slag or fused particles, and return slag-free flux to the hopper in one continuous automatic operation. The standard power unit on PTW systems is Model# 545/45-20Hp. The dual axial piston pump units produce 40-GPM of flow at 1750-RPM (using a 20 horsepower electric motor). The nominal system pressure for these units are rated at 1000-PSI. Contact FMI for more information on these units.