Journal - Trumpf GmbH + Co. KG

A tough
customer
Hardox steel is made to
withstand the most extreme
wear. But this is a quality that,
unfortunately, also comes into
play during processing. Thanks
to the VLM die, the Kreisel
GmbH & Co. KG can bend high-
strength sheet metal as thick as
eight millimeters without major
wear. And when doing so, it
reduces the time required for
bending by two-thirds.
Hardness paired with great toughness —
that’s what makes Hardox steel the preferred
material for the most demanding applications.
But what reduces wear in the final
products — such as dump truck bodies or in
bulk goods handling equipment — can have
unintended and less desirable effects during
machining and manufacture. General Manager
Horst Meister of Kreisel GmbH & Co.
KG knows what he’s talking about.
Conveying bulk goods
takes its toll This family firm,
located in the town of Krauschwitz, near the
Polish border, specializes in products used
in environmentally sound dust reduction
and conveyors for hard-to-handle bulk
goods. One example is a rotary feeder.
Whether it’s a matter of moving cement, fertilizer
or sugar — in China, Vietnam, Russia,
Poland or Germany — the rotary feeders
Technology: Bending
made by Kreisel ensure that the right quantity
of material is introduced to the process
at just the right time. This feeder essentially
is comprised of a rotor to which trough-like
chambers are mounted and which rotates in
a closed housing. The bulk product falls
into one of the chambers through the inlet
opening and exits the chamber at the outlet
port. This enables continuous feed at a specific
volume. But, the insides of the troughs
are exposed to severe loading by the material
— such as cement clinker or lumps of
coal in power plants. Material at a grain size
of up to 150 millimeters is moved through
the rotary feeders.
Horst Meister: “That is the reason for the
high demand for these feeders, particularly in
the building materials industry and in coal
feeding for power plants. This is where the
Hardox material is important to us.” Hardox
plate is used for these chambers and other
Maik Lehmann works with the TrumaBend 320 to shape, in several steps, the material used for the chambers in the rotary feeders.
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