Casting Beds

Casting beds are a very important part of hollowcore production. Good quality; dimensionally accurate; correctly installed beds ensure efficient continuous production and help improve the finished hollowcore slab soffit quality.

Our casting beds are supplied completed assembled in 5.715 meter sections. Each section contains two side member channels running the complete length of the section which have steel cross member supports. A skin plate is welded to the channels and in turn the bed chamfer rails are welded to the skin plate. Provision is made for under bed heating pipes. The sections are welded onto ground fixing plates and resin anchor bolts supplied for fixing the sections to the factory floor.

The assembly would consist of providing a concrete base for the bed, laying insulation material and putting down the heating pipes. The sections are then filled with concrete to reduce transmission of vibration to the extruded product; set down and then welded together.

To improve concrete curing times we reccomend insulation and a hot water heating system under the casting beds. We can also supply a very simple and cost effective system that is easy to install and ensures high early cutting strengths within 8 hours.

Casting bed length is dictated by a number of factors, some of which have associated advantages and disadvantages. These factors could be available space, production capacity, flexibility of production volumes, strand patterns, bed utilisation, turn round time and off-cuts wastage. Shorter Production Beds give easier coverage for curing, delivery and transport. They are more flexible for scheduling of multiple machine sizes but are not so productive. Ideally we would recommend a bed length of 120 metres.

Should you wish to fabricate the beds locally we can offer a complete drawing package to enable you to manufacture them to the standard Spiroll design. This enables overseas customers in particular to save on shipping costs and import duties and minimise factory completion time which can ensure a quicker payback is achieved to meet and exceed the expectations of the investment.