Abstract
H-beam used for stiffening the upper structure of ocean plant is cut in the various shapes. The cutting process of the H-beam is done manually and requires a long time and high cost. Therefore, automation of H-beam cutting is an important task. This research aims to develop a 3-D simulator to build the automatic H-beam cutting system and to determine the optimal cutting method. The automatic H-beam cutting system composes of 6 robots including 2 cutting robots hang to a crane and 1 conveyer. The appropriate system layout for covering the various sizes and types of H-beam was tested and determined using the simulator. The H-beam cutting system uses a hybrid type of plasma and gas cutting because of special cutting shapes of H-beam. The cutting area of each cutting method should be properly divided according to the size and shape of H-beam to shorten the total cutting time. Additionally the collision between a robot and a robot or a robot and H-beam should be avoided. The optimal cutting method for the shortest cutting time without the collision could be found for the various cutting conditions by use of the simulator. 2 simulation samples shows the availability of the simulator to find the optimal cutting method.
