ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,447,520, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to SMS group GmbH (Dusseldorf, Germany).
"Method for producing open-seam pipes" was invented by Mario Thome (Willich, Germany), Regine Ahrem (Wuppertal, Germany) and Jochen Vochsen (Erkelenz, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A method for producing open-seam pipes from flat metal products, in particular sheet metal, includes a plurality of individual bending steps using at least one bending tool and at least one externally located lower tool. A plurality of positions of individual bending steps and the insertion depth of the bending tool are calculated in advance. Based thereon the flat metal...