Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm Gmbh

Heinrich Dettmann

Manfred Lechner

Volker Schirm

The constructional parts have walls formed of elongated juxtaposed tubes, wound spirally about the axis of symmetry of the constructional parts and connected to each other. The tubes are bent to shape by a bending device having at least one bending flank or edge surface conformable to the predetermined 3-dimensional geometry of the part to be manufactured, with one end of each tube being fixed to the bending device and the other end being engaged in a clamping and adjusting device designed as a combined Cardan swivel joint. During bending, the clamping and adjusting device is utilized to continuously control the adjustment parameters of the tube being bent, about three mutually intersecting and perpendicular axes, in conformity with the predetermined three-dimensional geometry of the part, and the radial distance of the swivel joint from the axis of symmetry of the bending device is continuously controlled. A closed-loop control system is provided, and includes an actual-value transmitter, measuring the radial displacement of the swivel joint clamping device relative to the axis of symmetry of the bending device, a reference-value transmitter, having a set point adjusted as a function of the angular displacement between the bending device and the clamping device, and an actuator operating, as a function of the error signal value, to effect radial displacement of the clamping device. The control loop is advantageously designed as an electro-hydraulic system. The control member of the control system may be a cam, or the reference values, which are a function of the angle of rotation, may be determined by means of a digital computer.

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Ingelfingen, Germany

Heinrich Dettmann