Development of a 90°/180° Upender for Large and Heavy Workpiece by Using Airbags-Drived Flipping Worktable

There is a serious security problem in the process of workpieces flipping, which restricts the increase of production capacity in manufacturing process of large workpieces applied in nuclear power equipment. The shapes and characteristics of flipping workpieces were analyzed; the general model of workpieces outer contour was established. The design goals of heavy castings and forgings cold-work turnover mechanism were formulated based on the requirements of turning process, then the basic constraint-face was build and the geometric constraint-model was uniformed. A novelty 3- DOF planar serial mechanism of heavy upender was proposed whose overall configuration consists of three movements, that is roll, mobile, folding turn, which can realize the double function of turning 90 ° and 180 ° of large workpiece as hollow cylindrical, conical and spherical crown three types. On this basis, the airbags-drived flipping worktable was designed; Topological optimization of flipping worktable was further conducted. Its key technology will provide useful ideas and references for the development of large heavy duty positioner and turnover machine with its other related equipment.