Roll Formed Products

Roll Formed Products

Roll formed products are long, metal shapes with different profiles that are produced by bending a flat piece of metal between a set of rollers. The metals may be alloys, ferrous, non-ferrous, pure or composite materials that are heated below their softening point to obtain a stronger, more rigid product via a cold working process. Literally any kind of metals is used, including titanium, aluminum, stainless steel, copper, zinc, bronze and brass, the most common of which are steel and aluminum. The thin, flat preforms are formed into many different shapes, including L-shaped 90º angles, round tubes and pipes, square, rectangular and triangular tubes and pipes, C, S and Z-shaped profiles, metal rings, channels and hats. They are very useful in a number of different applications within the energy, construction, transportation, medical, highway safety, electronics, retail, material handling and storage industries. Roll forming manufacturers make parts for products like medical carts, solar frames, gas station pumps, vending machines, rail cars, scaffolds, refrigerators, ladders, racks and shelving, escalators, conveyor systems, point of purchase displays, furniture and filters, as well as finished products like posts, door frames, ramps, guard rails and partitions.

Roll forming produces high volumes of products in short amounts of time. The machines offer high repeatability, and the ability to produce uniform parts. Roll formed part profiles are able to be more complex and strong than those produced with traditional long profile 3-dimensional metal product manufacturing like extruding and press brake forming. They are often designed and created using computer simulation. Roll forming is a continuous operation that begins with sheets, strips, coils, wires and rolls of any metallic substance, which are called preforms. They are metal that may be pre-coated, embossed or pre-punched. The metal preforms are fed through many sets of rollers. Each set slightly bends the sheet along the linear axis, pressing it into a more uniform grain flow and shaping it to specific widths. Although operating costs are high, roll forming machines have such a high rate of production, which makes them highly efficient and economical. Typically, this process is not used for short runs because of the high initial calendar die tooling costs.