If you’re in the business of manufacturing parts, you already know about industrial x-ray equipment and 3D imaging and industrial CT scanning, but there advances in the industry you may not be aware of. These advances can help reduce your new product inspection and failure analysis costs between 25 and 75 percent as compared to technology of the not so distant past still being used by some metrology services.
History of CT Scanning
South African born physicist Allan Cormack and British engineer Godfrey Hounsfield teamed up in 1972 to create the first CT scanner. In his lab at EMI, the device took several hours to create a single image or slice. It then took days to piece the slices together to create a single image from that raw data. Despite the slowness of the process, Hounsfield and Cormack earned a Nobel Peace Prize for their contributions to science and medicine.
Present Day CT Scanning
While that first scanner took days to construct a single image, now a 512 x 512 matrix image of millions of data points can be created in less than a second. Present day CT scanners can create 4 slices in only 350 ms. Only a few years ago it would take hours to generate only a few slices but now full 3D models with millions of voxels can be constructed in mere seconds, thus paving the way for 3D reverse engineering, and rapid prototyping
Industrial X-ray Inspection
Industrial x-ray equipment that does not require old chemical processing can capture up to 30 frames per second. And part size is not a factor. Parts as small as .5mm in length can be accurately measured just as parts as large as 660mm in diameter by 1m in length can be properly and accurately inspected with an industrial x-ray.
3d Laser Scanning
Internal 3d imaging can be used to check wall thickness, fiber analysis and porosity. 3d imaging is also useful in reverse engineering projects.
A company specializing in parts inspection should have a variety of tools and methods at its disposal to help clients get the accurate data they need whether they have a single part or tens of thousands. And whether you are looking to inspect existing parts or looking to create from a prototype, accurate metrology is the key.
