A SAIP CONTITECH LINE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF OVER-STANDARD LENGTH SANDWICH PANELS SUPPLIED TO STEADMANS UK

SAIP has recently supplied and installed a complete sandwich panel production line to the UK steel cladding specialist STEADMANS.

STEADMANS is the UK leading company manufacturing building materials for the agricultural and steel building sectors. STEADMANS has been operating since more than 100 years on and it’s specialized in the production of cladding panels, roofing and structural products.

STEADMANS intended to upgrade their existing product line with the addition of a wall panel capability.

SAIP designed and developed a customized line, based on the specific needs of the customer.

A newly conceived wall panel now in production

Main features of the line:

The line is fully automated and it’s able to produce, in continuous, roof and wall panels up to 16.000 mm length.

It is equipped with a 36 mt long double belt, which mounts slat-blocks handling caterpillar with an over-standard length to ensure a proper containing of the foam during polymerization phase.

The management system of the finished panel is ensured by a cooler with 40 stations, by tipping and stacking equipment, that divide roof panels from wall ones, and by a packing unit placed at the end of the line, that, thanks to the automatic pallet insertion, ensures that the pack of panels are ready to be stored and sent to the customer.

The line is also equipped with Saip overlapping (panel longitudinal junction) & endlapping (foam-free zone at the gutter) patented solutions according which the panel is created before the foaming phase of the two surfaces with a cutting system by means of a shear and a consecutive moving overlapping system whose measurement can vary from a minimum of 20 mm to a maximum of 300 mm. After the overlap of the sheet metal, a polypropylene strip is applied at the end of the overlapping sheet so as to seal the area and prevent foam infiltration. The polypropylene strip in question has a unique measure that applies to all overlapping measures.

The panel is cut using a disc that cuts the internal sheet of the panel and the foam to a certain thickness; the rest of the foam is removed with a water-jet system. The separation of the panels takes place by accelerating the panels at the exit.

SAIP overlapping and endlapping solutions overcome the limits of traditional methods allowing the following advantages:

  • Better panel finishing
  • Less waste raw materials
  • Power consumption reduction
  • Reduction of labor costs

CEDEPA: a fully equipped R&D centre at customer disposal for testing activities

STEADMANS conducted their trials and tests at CEDEPA (www.cedepa.org), SAIP & DOW R&D centre specifically dedicated to innovation in sandwich panel manufacturing based in Spain. STEADMANS engineers could make foaming and dimensional tests using the onsite industrial-scale continuous production line and avail of the modern laboratory to validate results.

Thanks to the just-in-time change of roll forming on the line, they could perform the testing phase by using exactly the same panel profile, validating the new wall panel which at that point was ready to be launched.


High automation level of the metal sheet joining system