SERVICE SPECIALIST
FOR INDUSTRIAL COMPUTERTOMOGRAPHY

Indus­tri­al CT in the auto­mo­tive industry

Inspec­tion of com­po­nents using indus­tri­al CT has been an inte­gral part of qual­i­ty assur­ance in the auto­mo­tive indus­try for many years. Man­u­fac­tur­ers know that rapid feed­back in the event of devi­a­tions in prod­uct qual­i­ty saves costs. In times of light­weight con­struc­tion, tran­si­tion to elec­tro­mo­bil­i­ty and increased efforts to reduce CO2, this is even more true.

Microvista’s ser­vice helps to over­come a wide range of chal­lenges, e.g. when it comes to sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fy­ing and elim­i­nat­ing the caus­es of defects or when batch­es can­not be released due to poten­tial defects.

Pre­ven­tion is often bet­ter than after­care. With our fast and reli­able CT ser­vice, you have every­thing in view. This fore­sight saves you time and mon­ey in rela­tion to the entire pro­duc­tion process.

Experts in pow­er­train testing

engine block pictogram

Com­bus­tion

electric motor pictogram

E‑mobility

Prac­ti­cal exam­ple: com­bus­tion engine powertrain

combustion engine powertrain CT scan

Chal­lenge:

Remain­ing of inor­gan­ic binders in cavities

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Func­tion­al impair­ment due to adher­ing core residues in cool­ing chan­nels (fail­ure of pumps and aux­il­iary units due to detach­ment of these possible)

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Non-destruc­tive test­ing can be imple­ment­ed even on a com­plete­ly assem­bled engine for acute dam­age lim­i­ta­tion or pre­ven­tive­ly in case of sus­pi­cion (FMEA).

combustion engine powertrain 3D

Chal­lenge:

High tech­no­log­i­cal require­ments for wall thick­ness­es and the mechan­i­cal load capac­i­ty due to more engine pow­er and simul­ta­ne­ous mass reduction

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Not achiev­ing machine capa­bil­i­ty (risk of over­heat­ing and wall pen­e­tra­tion under load).

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Dimen­sion­al inspec­tion of indi­vid­ual and crit­i­cal fea­tures with fast OK/NOK evaluation.

combustion engine powertrain CAD target actual comparison

Chal­lenge:

Order­ing a new pro­duc­tion batch after a long time — does the mold real­ly fit the cur­rent CAD?

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Lost pro­duc­tion (detec­tion of miss­ing con­tour only in final assembly)

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Fast detec­tion of unwant­ed devi­a­tions and oth­er defi­cien­cies through CAD target/actual com­par­i­son (need-based main­te­nance of core box­es and molds possible)

Prac­ti­cal exam­ple: com­bus­tion engine powertrain

Hairpin Statoren

Chal­lenge:

Pre­vent imper­mis­si­bly thin walls in the cool­ing jacket

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Break­through at full load and risk of field fail­ure occurrence.

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Rapid detec­tion of defect focal points to sta­bi­lize pro­duc­tion process­es through ful­ly auto­mat­ed and cost-effec­tive CT evaluation 

hairpin and laser welding

Chal­lenge:

High mechan­i­cal stress of laser joints (e.g. weld­ing of hair­pins or of con­tact­ing systems)

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Field fail­ures with pos­si­ble recalls caused by sys­tem­at­ic deviations

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Process reli­a­bil­i­ty and sta­bil­i­ty through reg­u­lar ran­dom sam­pling inclu­sive of fast auto­mat­ic deter­mi­na­tion of the most impor­tant qual­i­ty parameters

computed tomography scanning automotive industry

Chal­lenge:

Holey short-cir­cuit rings and shrink-funks on their con­nect­ing rods in asyn­chro­nous motors

Pos­si­ble consequences:

Mal­func­tion in use

Advan­tages of CT testing:

Inspec­tion of the mechan­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty on the met­al sheet package

Inspec­tion of struc­tur­al components

The man­u­fac­ture of struc­tur­al com­po­nents is tech­no­log­i­cal­ly chal­leng­ing, because hybrid struc­tures are cre­at­ed, e.g. from dif­fer­ent met­als and fiber com­pos­ites, using sophis­ti­cat­ed join­ing tech­niques.  Here, it can hap­pen that mechan­i­cal char­ac­ter­is­tic val­ues are not achieved and, as a result, mal­func­tions occur on crit­i­cal com­po­nents. An inspec­tion with CT can pro­vide feed­back for process improve­ment and sort out defec­tive parts.
Strukturbauteile

Mon­tage und Fügekontrolle

Your prod­uct is non-func­tion­al and you can’t find the rea­son? You are unsure whether the assem­bly was done cor­rect­ly? Dis­as­sem­bly is not per­mit­ted, unsuit­able for analy­sis or too costly? 

With­out dis­as­sem­bly can be checked com­plete­ness, prop­er fit and suf­fi­cient­ly good joint.

CT image of an assembly control

Too many or too few screws, seals, etc. were used dur­ing assem­bly of sub­assem­blies. You do not know whether e.g. loose screws are includ­ed in the fin­ished assemblies?

Indus­tri­al CT in the auto­mo­tive indus­try helps to sort out defec­tive assem­blies quick­ly and cost-effec­tive­ly so that blocked lots can be released at short notice.

assembly control CT image

Process of a non-destruc­tive test

Ser­i­al inspection

Ablauf Serienprüfung bei Microvista

*Note: Scan­ning with­in 24h only by appoint­ment and depend­ing on the num­ber of parts.

Com­pli­cat­ed com­po­nents in high-qual­i­ty end prod­ucts? Major dam­age due to qual­i­ty defects that far exceed the man­u­fac­tur­ing costs of a com­po­nent? Safe­ty-rel­e­vant com­po­nents that require 100% inspection?

In these cas­es, a fast, low-effort inspec­tion such as indus­tri­al com­put­ed tomog­ra­phy is required. Due to ready-made process and automa­tion mod­ules, high lev­els of matu­ri­ty in the inspec­tion process are realised extreme­ly quick­ly and at low cost.

Sam­pling

Ablauf einer Bemusterung mit CT

*Note: Lead time by arrange­ment, usu­al­ly < 3 days for stan­dard tasks. 

Need for inspec­tion in case of acute prob­lems in pro­duc­tion? Cus­tomer returns? Qual­i­fi­ca­tion of prod­uct changes?

Reli­able infor­ma­tion on the con­di­tion of the prod­uct, inclu­sions, voids or oth­er prop­er­ties must be avail­able quick­ly in order to react in time and draw the right con­clu­sions. Exper­tise in the plan­ning and exe­cu­tion of the CT scan as well as in the sub­se­quent analy­sis are cru­cial for this.

Get advice now!