Load-bar pitch and bar thickness together decide which widths exist at all. Pieces are placed on that grid, never between it, so a planned width is always one the line can produce.
Product · Nesting optimisation
Nesting that knows how a panel is made.
Nesting decides how the pieces on a job are cut from standard grating panels. Raw material is the largest cost on a grating order, so this one decision sets how much of every panel becomes product and how much becomes offcut.
What the solver models
Your machine, not a generic plate.
Every run takes its constraints from a machine profile you set up once and reuse on every batch.
Pieces are paired across the panel width on the side-by-side gap set by the pitch, so an end strip is not cut off and thrown away. This is where most of the recovered material comes from.
Panel span is chosen per panel within the bounds your profile allows, in your span step, rather than assuming a single stock length for the whole job.
Saw kerf, forging hold at the panel ends and the frame-bar span reduction are applied to cut dimensions, so the plan accounts for the material that never becomes product.
Every panel you do not open stays in stock.
Before the run
Preflight, not post-mortem.
A width that does not sit on the pitch grid is not manufacturable as drawn. Finding that out after the solve is too late; finding it out after the saw is expensive.
| Classification | What it means | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Fine | The requested width already sits on the pitch grid | Nested as requested |
| Extra load bar | The piece is short of a grid width and needs a bar welded on | A note carrying bar positions, delivered width and cut width |
| Split | The piece is wider than the machine can produce in one run | A note carrying each part, its cut width and trim, and the span allowance |
Requested and delivered width are shown against each other for every piece, so a non-standard width can never be quietly short-delivered.
Questions fabricators ask
How this differs.
How is grating nesting different from sheet-metal nesting?
Sheet-metal nesting is a geometry problem: arbitrary shapes are rotated and packed onto a plate with a kerf between them. Grating nesting is a manufacturing-structure problem. A grating panel is a welded lattice of load bars and cross rods, so pieces cannot be rotated, widths exist only on the load-bar pitch grid, and the gap between two side-by-side pieces is set by the pitch rather than by a kerf.
Can I use general-purpose nesting software for steel bar grating?
You can run it, but its output has to be corrected by hand. General nesters treat width as a continuous dimension and rotation as their main packing lever. In electroforged grating neither holds: an off-grid width is not manufacturable, and rotating a piece puts the load bars across the span instead of along it. The corrections undo most of the optimisation the tool performed.
How long does a run take?
The optimisation is a mixed-integer programme with a time limit, so a run finishes in a predictable window rather than running until it happens to converge. Most complete in one to three minutes; large lists take longer, with a hard ceiling on every run.
Will the same cut list always give the same plan?
Yes. The engine is pinned and the geometry is deterministic, so a re-run of the same input against the same machine profile reproduces the same plan. That is what makes a plan safe to quote from and safe to hand to the floor.