Automated inspection of MAG welded seams
A
Vitronic product story
Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team
Oct 31, 2008
Daimler AG has become one of the first vehicle manufacturers to utilise a system for the automated inspection and optimisation of welded seams.
More than eight million welded seams have been inspected since the installation of Vitronic's weld seam inspection technology at Mittingen in February 2007.
Daimler AG wanted to replace the existing manual welded seam inspection and reconditioning with an automated inspection and optimisation system working in a line cycle.
Vitronic's Virowsi inspection system is based on a comparison of different sensor systems.
It was calibrated during the launch of rear axle carrier production for the new C-Class.
The rear axle carriers are manufactured on lines in several assembly stages.
Components with a different number of seams are welded together in a welding booth, with the welded assembly being automatically inspected during the next stage of production.
If necessary, the components are optimised and inspected again.
The Virowsi inspection system is based on a laser triangulation method.
A semiconductor laser in a compact sensor projects a line on the welded seam while a high-speed camera, also housed in the sensor, captures the line as an elevation profile.
A three dimensional image of the welded seam surface is created gradually through the relative motion of the sensor and the object.
All relevant deviation from the ideal welded joint is accurately identified.
A range of defect types that require further processing were defined at the start of production.
The PWT/VUF department developed a proprietary software toolbox for inspection and optimisation, which processes the defect's type and location information for automatic optimisation.
This toolbox also carries out the visualisation and archiving of all inspection results.
The burner for re-welding is also mounted next to the inspection sensor on the inspection/optimisation robot.
If a defect is detected by the inspection system, the software decides if and how the optimisation process will be performed.
To complete the full documentation of each welded joint, the software also archives all inspection results.
Each test result is stored in a database.
The database contains all relevant information such as the component number and the quality of each component to guarantee traceability.
For rapid system/welded seam optimisation, all testing results can be represented in different ways.
For example, the defect's location is shown in colour directly on the component for the machine operator.
Additionally, tables/statistics with detailed information about several thicknesses are available in the system.
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