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What is Rollerform forming?

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What is roller forming?

Another important use of the Orbitform powerhead is for roll forming the lip of thinner metal cylinders with a special roller head attachment. In typical roller head forming or roller forming, three identical rollers are mounted in a circular pattern in a housing. These rollers have a contoured outside diameter for moving a cylindrical lip in a predetermined pattern as shown here.

As the powerhead advances with the roller head spinning, the rollers engage the workpiece. The cylinder material is moved along the contour of the rollers as the powerhead continues to advance and spin. Material can be rolled in or out, curled, flattened - a variety of configurations.

Roller head forming can also be done simultaneously with orbital forming. Here two concentric lips are being formed. The internal lip is being orbitally formed with a peen mounted in an orbital head. The outer lip is roller formed. The roller head housing is attached to the orbital head rather than directly to the powerhead spindle.

Here is a similar application with a larger inside diameter that required two sets of rollers.

All of the above examples of roller head technology application utilize fixed position rollers: rollers that are mounted in a fixed position in the roller head housing. There are also, however, applications where the rollers must be moved in or out as well in order to do a circular crimping.

The housing is similar to a 3-jaw chuck mounted vertically. Rollers are attached to the three chuck jaws. Roller/chuck jaw motion is hydraulically actuated. The roller head is advanced down over the part to be crimped. As the roller head spins, the rollers are moved inward to crimp the part.

As you can well imagine from the few examples shown here, roller head design is very application driven. Orbitform carries a number of generic roller head housings in our Engineering Lab for product and process development. Contact us directly about your custom roller head application.

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