ELEKTROMONTAŻ RZESZÓW S.A. has been manufacturing lighting columns for several years using novel industrial laser processes.
The lighting columns are manufactured from S235 sheet steel. The production process is fully automatic. The sheet steel is cut and formed, and the columns are welded with laser beams.
Laser welding of lighting columns requires no filler metals; the workpieces to be welded are brought into contact, and a focused laser beam melts and fuses the joint edges. Laser welding provides smooth fusion welds which do not require reworking.
The light columns produced by laser welding are seamless; the weld has minimum dimensions and remains barely visible.
Laser-welded lighting columns became the cornerstone of a new product line in the lighting column range from Elektromontaż Rzeszów; currently, the lighting columns with thin sheet walls are gradually being phased out in favour of 3 mm thick wall lighting columns. Laser-welded 3 mm thick sheet steel results in a thicker galvanic coating for better protection against corrosion. PN-EN ISO 1461 specifies an average galvanic coating thickness of 70 microns for 3 mm thick wall columns.
With the experience in passive safety testing of lighting columns, the laser-welded products have been certified for structural compliance with PN-EN 12767; now, the lighting columns with arms and 3 mm thick walls feature a passive safety class of 100LE1.
These latest lighting columns feature tested and proven pier footings with completely concealed bolts at the foundation connection, and compatibility with commercially available pre-cast foundation units. The lighting column pier footing and bottom section can be optionally preserved up to 600 mm in height with a hot-flow polyurethane elastomer coating.
An optional protective treatment of galvanised lighting columns is the DUPLEX system: multi-layered steel substrate preservation with a galvanic coating, which acts as an electrochemical barrier, and a topcoat of paint. The DUPLEX system is applied on a powder coating line, one of the latest expansions of the production capacity at Elektromontaż Rzeszów. The powder coating line has been specifically designed for processing 11-metre long workpieces for lighting columns.
The DUPLEX system can be optionally applied with coats which emulate the look and feel of traditional anodising without any compromise on the advantages of powder coating. This option provides steel columns with a protective galvanic coat under a protective finish powder coat; the total coating thickness is approximately 150 microns. Both coating types interact and extend the preservation life by more than two times over the life of either alone.