February 2024 Volume 6

AUTOMATION

Robotic Tooling for Hot Forging Applications: Tips of the Trade By Jim Morris

Gripper Design Tricks for Hot Part Handling Hot parts pose a problem for traditional pneumatic grippers in that special attention is required to avoid melting the interior seals, ingesting scale, and cooking out the lubricant in the gripper body. One way to get around this is to order special high temp seals and use special high temp lubricant for the gripper. The manufacturer may have a “hot part” kit available that might include special wipers for the gripper bearing rails and air purge port to keep the cavity of the gripper at a positive pressure relative to atmosphere. Consider ordering the gripper with oversized grease fittings so you can plumb grease lines outside any heat shield. Speaking of heat shields, use gage metal stainless steel to reflect radiation away from the gripper body. Use low conducting material to slow down heat conduction into the body. Stainless steel works well for this purpose. If your application might require the end of arm tool to hold onto the hot workpieces for extended periods, you might want to consider actively cooling the gripper body with compressed air or recirculating water. Consider installing a temperature sensor inside your heat shield enclosure and using this to turn cooling on and off to save compressed air.

Heat shield removed to show temperature sensor and vortex cooler

Angular gripper with heat shields

Parallel gripper with heat shields

FIA MAGAZINE | FEBRUARY 2024 32