Optimized welding of austenitic chromium‐nickel steel rollers of food machinery and lines

The article deals with the welding process of a specific part of food machinery and lines – rollers. Rollers come into direct contact with dough and are mainly used to reduce dough thickness. Austenitic chromium‐nickel steel X5CrNi1810 is used for rollers. This steel is characterized by very good corrosion resistance, cold formability and weldability. The roller consists of a tube, two surfaces and a supporting shaft. These individual parts are connected by welds, and the roller acquires its final shape after machining on a lathe. This operation is followed by surface treatment – hard chrome plating and surface grinding to a roughness of Ra 0.8. The welding process is optimized. The KEMPACT PULSE 3000 welding source with a KEMPACTCOOL 10 torch cooling unit is used for welding. Macroscopic observation of welds and hardness tests are carried out. The results of changing welding technology showed significant time savings during welding. The final time after optimizing the welding process is only 14 minutes, a time saving of 27 minutes compared to the old welding process.