GE Inspection Technologies (Huerth, Germany) and its Krautkramer ultrasonic products are at the front of using phased array technology in high-speed operations. Copperweld Automotive Group (Woodstock, Ontario, Canada) has installed Krautkramer phased array equipment to ultrasonically inspect tubes for any welding defects created during production.
The sun rises in the East and sets in the West and as it travels, its light waves strike the earth at different points, lighting and warming what it touches. While not as celestial, a new three-dimensional scanning system brings that idea to the world of test, measurement and inspection.
The ComScan CSA 1000 is an automated 3-D scanning system that integrates an independent scanner, a multiaxis component handling system and sophisticated software to capture line of sight data. The tool from Gaspardo & Associates (Aurora, IL) features a telescoping arm that moves in a semi-spherical arc from 0 to 90 degrees, and a component table that rotates, moves back and forth, and up and down-each movement presenting the scanner an area in which to capture data. This eliminates much of the material handling and setup time that often occurs using tripod-mounted 3-D scanning systems.
Tin whiskers are small and hard to detect and inspect. Typically no bigger than 1 to 5 microns in diameter and as much as several millimeters in length, they are small, but powerful; capable of turning a $250 million communication satellite into an orbiting paperweight and short circuiting pacemakers, radar systems, fuses, relays, GPS receivers and even disabling a nuclear power plant.
Keeping track of some 2,000 gages and other devices represents a clear challenge to any system, particularly for an organization that deals with the nation’s safety and security. Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL, Los Alamos, NM), a leading research institution, is meeting this challenge with GAGEpack EZ from PQ Systems (Miamisburg, OH).
Grace Medical Inc. (Memphis, TN) manufactures medical products for ear, nose and throat health, including prosthesis designs, drill systems, and instruments. Producing medical devices that are safe and work correctly requires accurate measurements during their production. One of the ways Grace Medical achieves the necessary accuracy is by using a SmartScope Flash 200 benchtop 3-D multisensor measurement system from Optical Gaging Products (OGP, Rochester, NY) for quality assurance and to help keep production levels high.
A year ago I wrote about the value of buying setting plugs along with adjustable thread ring gages, particularly special thread rings. One point I made was that setting plugs should be used for the resetting of adjustable thread rings in accordance with the standard. Taking measurements of them was not accurate enough.
The problem starts with buyers of special rings who do not wish to pay for proper setting plugs. When it’s time for calibration, the hunt begins for someone who has plugs and of course, it’s unlikely they will be found because calibration laboratories would go broke keeping special setting plugs on hand in most cases. Some laboratories are ready to cash in on this situation by offering to “measure” special adjustable thread ring gages so the technician won’t have to buy the right thing. And, wow, the cost will be a lot cheaper than buying setting plugs.
Circles are the most frequently produced machined form. Generated by many different processes-including turning, milling, centerless grinding, boring, reaming and drilling-there are, correspondingly, a wide variety of gaging methods used to measure inside and outside diameters. At the low end, a hole could be measured with a scale or a fixed go/no-go gage. At the other extreme, any number of precision measuring machines, including coordinate measuring machines (CMMs) and optical or vision machines are available. However, in production environments, most inside diameters and outside diameters (ID/ODs) can be accurately measured using one of several varieties of comparator gage.
ISO may have driven manufacturers into document control, but today’s systems have a lot more going for them than 10 years ago. After customers see the extent of what document control can accomplish today, “A lot of light bulbs go off,” says Roger Shugart, chief operating officer of Cebos Ltd. (Brighton, MI).
Experts say that document control is almost a given in today’s manufacturing plants. Whether it is as basic as Excel spreadsheets or a full-blown document control system, most companies have some type of document control system in place. What they may not realize is how much more document control has to offer.
Transducers convert energy from one form to another in order to measure a physical quantity or for information transfer. This broad definition includes microphones, thermometers and position and pressure sensors.
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