Hemming process designed for lightweight and EV manufacturing

21st March 2019

Comau

Lanna Deamer

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Comau is taking a quantum step forward in digital-enabled solutions for lightweight vehicle manufacturing with its new robotic roller hemming process. Fast, flexible and extremely precise, Smart Hemmer is a highly compact, symmetrical roller hemmer able to hem any complex joint. It is a suitable solution for the new generation of electric, hybrid and traditional lightweight vehicles as it is designed to allow automakers to join dissimilar materials using a cold process that grants complete control throughout the process.

Smart Hemmer addresses the dual market requirements of increased efficiency and accuracy. Its design features two flexible rollers in which the linear roller can automatically disengage when encountering obstacles or a curved path and avoids the costly and inflexible fixed anvil, apparent in all traditional roller hemming processes.

As a result, Smart Hemmer can perform curved path hemming and manage complex angles as part of a single, continuous process. Smart Hemmer is also able to maintain a constant hemming thickness even when encountering multiple layers of dissimilar materials

The result is an Industry 4.0-compliant hemming head, jointly developed by Comau and an automotive manufacturer, offering high reliability, inherent flexibility and complete process control while ensuring the geometric uniformity of the assembled parts.

“Comau’s newest hemming solution features a revolutionary design that renders it extremely fast and efficient for lightweight and e-vehicle manufacturing, while eliminating the costly attributes of the product as well as the associated production process,” explained Giovanni Di Stefano, Head of Process Technologies, “The Industry 4.0 compliant solution lets automakers to innovatively join components together with full in-process monitoring of the joint.”

Field-tested and validated by major European automakers, Smart Hemmer is a standardised product that can be applied to all vehicle architectures and compliments the complete array of similar technologies developed by Comau in the cold joining environment. It is available immediately at a global level.