About Slitting Process in metal can making industry
Slitting is also a shearing process, but rather than making cuts at the end of a workpiece like shearing, slitting us used to cut a wide coil of metal into a number of narrower coils as the main coil is moved through the slitter. During the slitting process, the metal coil passes lengthwise through the slitter's circular blades.
The slitting process characteristics include:
- being restricted to cutting relatively thin materials (0.001 to 0.125 in.),
- leaving left-over burrs on slit edges of the narrower coals,
- its ability to be used on both ferrous and nonferrous metals,
- its categorization as a high production designed to control metal coil width.
The illustration that follows provides a two-dimensional look at a typical coil slitting process. Note how the metal workpiece is drawn past the upper and lower slitting blades, leaving two coils the same length as the original wide coil.
Slitting can be used equally well for both sheet or coil rolls.
Slitting blades are designed depending on the job required. The three critical determinants of the blade configuration include:
- The workpiece material thickness;
- The type of material to be slitted;
- The tolerances that must be held while slitting.