Continuing a half-century of leadership in automated industrial joining processes, KUKA Robotics brought its latest advancements to this year’s FABTECH Mexico. The company demonstrated its arc, rotary friction and friction stir welding applications and highlighted its broad array of automated foundry casting solutions.

- Continuing a half-century of leadership in automated industrial joining processes, KUKA Robotics brought its latest advancements to this year's FABTECH Mexico. The company demonstrated its arc, rotary friction and friction stir welding applications and highlighted its broad array of automated foundry casting solutions.

Visitors at KUKA's FABTECH booth had the opportunity to interact directly with a demonstration of
System Partner AWL Automation's E-line cell equipped with KUKA KR8 Cybertech nano robot. AWL's E-Line cells feature Centralized Robot Control at the heart of their design that improves efficiency while guaranteeing safety. The E-Line maximizes floor space with a compact configuration and comes in three different models: Automatic Turntable, Manual Turntable and 2-Station Cell.

KUKA's KR 8 CYBERTECH nano, with a payload capacity of 8 kg, handles small components in virtually unlimited applications and is ideal for use in compact robotic cells. Flexible and cost effective, KUKA's nano family of robots is extremely light and compact and provides maximum performance with minimal disruptive contours. Nano robots open up previously inaccessible workspaces and adapt to virtually any installation position - floor, wall or ceiling - at any angle.

With more than 1,200 rotary friction welding machines installed in more than 44 countries, KUKA offers both standard and custom-tailored machines with fixed or moving headstocks. The machines ensure welding precision and high productivity. They help reduce consumables costs and provide versatility needed to join a wide variety of material combinations.

KUKA rotary friction welding machines generate welds with fine-grained structures and low porosity, while minimizing component hardening and distortion. The process is well suited for a wide variety of components in industries that include aerospace, automotive, construction machinery and energy.

A "green technology" with low energy consumption, FSW ensures high seam strength with no defects such as pores or cracks and with minimal welding distortion. KUKA FSW is ideal for difficult to weld materials as well as for joining two dissimilar materials such as aluminum with magnesium, copper or steel. Friction stir processing is used in a variety of sectors, including the automotive industry, including the e-mobility market, aerospace, and electronics manufacturing.

FSW systems from KUKA deliver optimum joining of non-ferrous metals with low melting temperatures and mixed-metal combinations. The process uses a rotating pin that moves along the contact surfaces between the workpieces, and the resulting heat created by friction plasticizes and welds parts together.

At FABTECH Mexico, KUKA also highlighted its more than 60 years of experience in automated foundry casting technology. KUKA's casting solutions cover virtually all die-casting tasks from foundry-compliant unloading from the die casting machine to mold spraying and quenching through to deburring and trimming. KUKA's end-to-end, single-source automated casting solutions provide everything necessary to ensure high quality production from machine unloading to finished component.


KUKA
KUKA is a global automation corporation with sales of around 2.6 billion euro and roughly 14,000 employees. The company is headquartered in Augsburg, Germany. As one of the world's leading suppliers of intelligent automation solutions, KUKA offers customers everything they need from a single source: from robots and cells to fully automated systems and their networking in markets such as automotive, electronics, metal & plastic, consumer goods, e-commerce/retail and healthcare. (12.31.2020)