The four-roll cone-forming plate rolling machine is a forging and forming machine that incorporates specialised cone-forming functions based on a standard four-roll plate rolling machine. Through the coordinated action of four working rolls, it can roll metal plates into cylinders, curved components and conical cylinders, and can complete the pre-bending of both ends of the plate, cylindrical rolling, conical rolling and circular alignment in a single loading operation. It produces minimal residual straight edges and is the core equipment for machining conical workpieces.

Principle of Operation

When rolling a cone, the narrow end of the sheet is pressed tightly against the cone stop wheel, whilst the lower roller is tilted on one side. This creates a difference in linear velocity between the wide end and the narrow end of the cone: the wide end moves faster, whilst the narrow end is fed more slowly due to resistance from the cone stop. This ensures continuous feeding of the sheet along the generatrix of the cone, thereby completing the roll-forming of the conical cylinder.

Main Structure

The machine consists primarily of a frame, upper roll, lower roll, left and right side rolls, a cone-to-cone clamping device, a hydraulic drive system, a transmission mechanism, and an electrical/CNC control system.

Upper Roll: The main drive roll, which bears the primary rolling pressure; it can be tilted to adapt to taper rolling conditions;

Lower Roll: Can be raised and lowered vertically to clamp the sheet; during taper rolling, it can be tilted on one side to create a height difference;

Side rolls: The left and right side rolls can be tilted and raised or lowered independently to adjust the bending curvature, thereby achieving pre-bending and taper forming;

Taper stop device: Mounted at the small-end, it relies on frictional resistance to limit the feed speed of the sheet metal at the small end, preventing axial movement, twisting, skewing and flaring of the workpiece, whilst withstanding the axial thrust generated during taper rolling;

Hydraulic and CNC systems: The hydraulic system provides the power for roller movement; on CNC models, the diameters of the large and small ends, sheet thickness and cylinder length are input, and the system automatically calculates the roller tilt and elevation parameters, with the taper being infinitely adjustable.