• West Coast Engineering Corporation

Heavy-Duty CNC Machine for Pipe Edge Preparation

Pipe Edge Preparation is a major machining operation in the power sector boiler manufacturing industry, petroleum drilling and refining sectors, chemicals and fertilizer plant manufacturing sector, etc., i.e., wherever large pipe fabrications are involved. The machinery for the vital operation has so far been imported from abroad.  Now the machinery for the whole range of operation is manufactured by West Coast Engineering Corporation, a 37-year old customised machine building company that specialises in manufacture of CNC Vertical Turning Centres, Conventional and CNC Special Purpose Machines, Specialised Railway Equipment, Hydraulic Presses, Disc Grinding Machines, etc.
   
The manufacturer can supply CNC machines for chamfering tubes/pipes from 30 mm to 1200 mm OD and any wall thickness. The item in the photo is a mid range pipe edge preparation machine to machine pipes of diameters from 60 mm to 220 mm with multi tool plunge cutting. The feed rate is infinitely variable and the spindle speed is also infinitely variable from 40 RPM to 800 RPM. For heavy and long jobs an attached outboard support is provided on the machine for still longer jobs portable additional support’s can be provided away from the machine to suit the length of the jobs.
 
The job is clamped in self centering hydraulic vice of up to 15 tonnes clamping power and a slight eccentricity/ovality in the job can be corrected or if need be a little eccentricity can be introduced into the job position by operating the hydraulic auxiliary clamping cylinders which are also of the same holding power but enabling shifting of the center line of the job.
 
The CNC machine is offered on Siemen’s CNC Platform with 802D-SL controller as standard with Fanuc as optional. The machine goes with customised software and customised screen developed by the In-house Team of west coast, making the machine so simple that it can be operated by somebody with almost zero CNC part programming knowledge.
 
Once cutting parameters and job dimensions are loaded on the screen, the machine automatically calculates power requirements and will start only if within safe limits thereby enabling full utilisation of spindle power of 18.5/22 kW safely during production.
 
The machine comes with an in-built spiral screw conveyor for removal of the heavy chips and an external chip trolley. 
 
Powered by powerful cutting cycles and state-of-art-technology going into these machines, it produces an end in about 1-2 minutes plus loading or approximately a 400% jump in productivity compared to the earlier generation machines built/used across the world today.
 
The company is a major supplier of customised machinery for the boiler and petroleum industry like tube end scarfers, tube edge preparation machines, plate edge milling machines, CNC vertical turning centres, automatic tube handling systems for tubes up to 72 mtr integrated with real time radiographic testing of welds, welding, pipe cutting and chamfering, hydraulic presses, etc. Many other customised import substitution machinery for railways, textile and construction industries are also manufactured by them.