ASSEMBLY & JOINING CONTROL
WITH INDUSTRIAL CT

GET YOUR INSPECTION DONE – Anywhere. Any­ti­me. Fast.

Risking a look inside instead of disassembling

Even if indi­vi­du­al com­pon­ents seem to com­ply with the spe­ci­fi­ca­ti­ons, not ever­y­thing always works as plan­ned after the indi­vi­du­al parts have been assem­bled. Col­li­si­ons may occur or cer­tain per­for­mance para­me­ters may not be met. In such cases, the cau­se is often invi­si­ble from the out­side. A look insi­de can reve­al the cau­se. Indus­tri­al com­pu­ted tomo­gra­phy makes this pos­si­ble for you & thus makes assem­bly & joint con­trol child’s play!

After assem­bly, indus­tri­al CT can be used to obser­ve the beha­viour of an assem­bly in various sta­tes. It is pos­si­ble with ease to detect errors that occur during assembly.

If a pro­blem occurs, the who­le pro­duc­tion lot could be affec­ted. Dis­as­sembling ever­y­thing is not an eco­no­mic­al opti­on. In the­se cir­cum­s­tances, a quick CT scan can pro­vi­de a reme­dy. Through our years of expe­ri­ence, we can achie­ve a high level of auto­ma­ti­on in assem­bly & joint inspec­tion, which allows us to offer cost-effec­ti­ve solu­ti­ons. If such pro­blems, or simi­lar ones, are of prac­ti­cal rele­van­ce to you, then you will cer­tain­ly be inte­res­ted in the fol­lo­wing case studies.

Assembly and joining inspection represented by a chopping gear under a magnifying glass

Practical examples for assembly & joining control with industrial CT

Pumps

Montage- & Fügekontrolle: Pumpe fehlerfrei montiert

Error-free

Montage- & Fügekontrolle: Pumpe mit fehlendem Teil

Error

Challenge:

A pump about the size of a hand con­ta­ins con­trol elec­tro­nics that are inser­ted com­ple­te­ly as a cir­cuit board by a robot. The cir­cuit board is atta­ched by seve­ral pins that are firm­ly con­nec­ted to the housing. The cir­cuit board is pres­sed in through cor­re­spon­ding holes. The pins spread slight­ly and ever­y­thing is fine. Nor­mal­ly! Due to mini­mal tole­ran­ces and equal­ly small posi­tio­ning errors, it can occa­sio­nal­ly hap­pen that a pin is not hit cor­rect­ly during assem­bly and is bent over ins­tead. The press-in pres­su­re remains con­stant, howe­ver, so that the assem­bly moni­to­ring pro­vi­ded does not indi­ca­te an error in this case.

Possible consequences:

After instal­la­ti­on in the vehic­le, an affec­ted pump initi­al­ly works per­fect­ly. Howe­ver, after a few kilo­me­t­res, some­ti­mes even seve­ral hundred kilo­me­t­res of dri­ving, a short cir­cuit occurs bet­ween the cir­cuit board and the housing. This can be cau­sed, for exam­p­le, by a vio­lent impact when dri­ving over a bump in the road. The result is that the pump fails and the vehic­le comes to a standstill.

This has con­se­quen­ces for the manu­fac­tu­rer:
The pumps curr­ent­ly pro­du­ced and not yet instal­led are not released by the cus­to­mer wit­hout pro­of that they are free of defects. The only reme­dy is an 8D report or simi­lar to release the cur­rent batch and find out how the pro­blem can be effec­tively excluded in the future. 

Advantages of the CT scan:

X‑rays can be used to iden­ti­fy the pro­blem, but the manu­fac­tu­rer does not have an auto­ma­ted, relia­ble pro­cess eit­her for loa­ding the auto­ma­tic X‑ray machi­ne or for eva­lua­ting the images. In con­trast, Microvista’s sophisti­ca­ted soft­ware tool­box in com­bi­na­ti­on with a fast CT scan allows the com­ple­te ana­ly­sis of 100 pumps per hour and is up and run­ning after a short pre­pa­ra­ti­on time.

Valve

Montage- & Fügekontrolle: Ventil-Dichtung nicht verbogen

Seal fits correctly

Montage- & Fügekontrolle: Ventil-Dichtung verbogen

Seal fits incorrectly

Challenge:

When instal­ling a val­ve to open and clo­se the coo­ling cir­cuit in the vehic­le, a shaft with a lever must be inser­ted. This lever is enga­ged by an actua­tor that func­tions as a final con­trol ele­ment. Seals are pre-moun­ted in the val­ve to pre­vent coo­lant from esca­ping in the shaft area. When the shaft is pushed in, slight pres­su­re is exer­ted on the­se seals. In rare cases, this can cau­se the seal to be squeezed so that the seal lips no lon­ger fit pro­per­ly against the housing. The manu­fac­tu­ring pro­cess is the­r­e­fo­re not 100% controlled. 

Possible consequences:

After seve­ral actua­tions, coo­lant leaks out. The effect, which is initi­al­ly very slight, inten­si­fies with fur­ther func­tion­al strokes, so that even­tual­ly reco­g­nisable pudd­les of coo­lant form under the vehic­le. Alt­hough the pro­blem occurs very rare­ly, it can­not be com­ple­te­ly avo­ided by the pro­duc­tion department.

Advantages of the CT scan:

Microvista’s auto­ma­ted pro­ces­ses can pro­vi­de a cost-effec­ti­ve and fast 100% inspec­tion. With this solu­ti­on, the­re is no need for cos­t­ly and leng­thy design revi­si­on inclu­ding new injec­tion moulds, ite­ra­ti­ons as well as sam­pling pro­ces­ses. Ins­tead, the eco­no­mic effi­ci­en­cy of pro­duc­tion is ensu­red by a high­ly auto­ma­ted and effec­ti­ve design of the inspec­tion pro­cess. In the case descri­bed here, all parts of a con­tai­ner (30 pie­ces) were digi­ti­sed in one step and then eva­lua­ted using arti­fi­ci­al intel­li­gence. The val­ve manu­fac­tu­rer is satis­fied with this solu­ti­on and his cus­to­mer is hap­py. The archi­ving of all ana­ly­sis data can be seen as a small posi­ti­ve side effect. If field fail­ures occur years later, it is thus pos­si­ble for the manu­fac­tu­rer to pro­ve that he deli­ver­ed qua­li­ty parts to the assem­bly line.

What are the options for a CT inspection? 

As a ser­vice spe­cia­list for indus­tri­al com­pu­ted tomo­gra­phy, we car­ry out fast and qua­li­ta­ti­ve sam­pling of indi­vi­du­al parts or series test­ing of lar­ge quan­ti­ties, tail­o­red to the needs of our customers.

Serial testing or sampling

Price examples for assembly & joining inspections with industrial CT

A fast indus­tri­al CT ana­ly­sis is pos­si­ble at Micro­vis­ta at an excel­lent pri­ce-per­for­mance ratio. The unit cos­ts for assem­bly and joi­ning inspec­tions shown in the examp­les are inten­ded to give you a basic idea of the pri­ce. Due to the fact that the chal­lenges our cus­to­mers face are usual­ly very dif­fe­rent, we prepa­re an indi­vi­du­al offer for each one.

Num­ber Water pumps Val­ve
Check of 4 sold­e­red joints for cor­rect geo­me­try of the joi­ning zone Exami­na­ti­on for crus­hing of a seal in the assem­bled state
100 46,50 €/piece 25,00 €/piece
500 19,00 €/piece 13,00 €/piece
1000 11,00 €/piece 4,90 €/piece

Note:
In each case, the com­ple­te parts logi­stics inclu­ding the tracea­bi­li­ty of all inspec­tion results as well as the ful­ly auto­ma­tic eva­lua­ti­on inclu­ding the result docu­ments are included.