DIGITAL
DESIGN AND ANALYSIS
Noncontact inspection improves metal castings. BEN GALMICHE, QUALITY ASSURANCE MANAGER, O’FALLON CASTING, O’FALLON, MO. T
he need to inspect digitally designed castings has in- creased over the past several years. Casting buyers are developing new systems and updating proven designs by making 3-D models of components and assemblies. New products designed in a digital environment— where individual parts can be included in assembly
models to review form, fi t and function—often include more complex shapes only the metalcasting process can create. T e challenge facing manufacturers is how to inspect parts created strictly from a 3-D model. T e days of scribe lines and height gages are long gone. Current laser scanning equipment provides surface data in excess of any prior
inspection technique. T e surface profi le can be analyzed, and deviations can be expressed as a global condition or localized. T is noncontact method for casting inspection off ers advantages versus touch probe inspection, and eff ective methods for correcting defects and aligning the data to the 3-D model are being developed.
Modern Inspection Equipment A noncontact, modern inspection confi guration at O’Fallon Casting,
O’Fallon, Mo., mounts a cross-scanning laser directly to a motorized probe head on a coordinate measuring machine (CMM) (see Fig. 1). T e scanner features
The laser moves across the part, generating the point cloud data.
Nov/Dec 2013 | METAL CASTING DESIGN & PURCHASING | 19
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