By rosebell
Producing 1,500 tons of reinforcement per week, two new robotic welding machines currently have accelerated production of reinforcement steel for casting the Fehmarnbelt tunnel elements.
In order to constructing the world’s longest immersed tunnel, a substantial amount of steel is required and one of the most vital tasks in the project is bending, cutting, and welding the thousands of tons of steel.
Due to that tunnel elements are cast around massive cages of reinforcement steel and all production lines in the factory have come into operation, the need for steel has increased significantly.
Considering that this work is so critical for the construction, it was decided to erect a separate factory hall on the construction site to supply steel to the element factory and portal construction in previous year.
Involving almost 13,000m² of the construction site,the hall that is called the Panel Factory, employs around 120 workers working in two shifts. The steel is cut to the sizes needed, reducing waste and strengthening the supply security for the project by producing steel grids to size and on demand.
Benefiting two robots most of the welding is done and they handle over 70% of the production, whereas they are fed by a magnetic crane that can lift up to five tons of steel at a time. The steel comes in rods up to 15m long and 32mm in diameter.
Being manufactured by the Spanish company DCM-Wire, the robotic welding machine is a prototype and normally are used to make thin panels for fences. The Fehmarn project is the first place in the world where robotic welding machines are used to weld reinforcement steel of this thickness.
May 2024 was the date of casting first 217m-long tunnel element and it consists of nine segments, each 24m long. The tunnel requires 79 elements of this type, another 10 special elements with space for the technical installations.
