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The
purpose of this equipment is the ultrasonic inspection of the bond
quality of Al-Fin insert to aluminium body in diesel pistons.
Piston
diameter range 60mm to 310mm
Up
to 8 channels are supported
Pulse
echo, through transmission or a combination of the two techniques
Horizontal
or vertical piston orientation
Fully
automatic or manual operation
The
Al-Fin bond is a bond between an aluminum alloy and a ferrous metal.
In diesel engine pistons for the automotive industry, this Al-fin
process is used to bond an iron insert in the position where the
top piston ring groove will be machined. This is necessary because
of the high compression ratio of a diesel engine when compared to
gasoline engine and therefore the stress on the top ring groove
is that much greater. It is the bond that will be inspected using
ultrasound. The bond area is an alloy of iron and aluminum that
has an intermediate chemical composition, of approximately FeAl3
An un-bonded
Al-Fin insert which has been removed from the piston is shown below.
Piston
Inspection Software
The piston inspection software is designed to perform several
functions critical to the integrity of the overall inspection
system. These functions are:
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To provide a user-friendly menu-driven user interface for communication
with the piston testing system.
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To
process and analyse ultrasonic inspection data supplied to the
computer by the Ultrasonic Instrument.
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To
store sets of user definable acceptance standards.
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To
associate a unique ultrasonic set-up file to each set of user
definable acceptance parameters.
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To
save the raw inspection data, for future analysis.
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To
display the inspection results, either after an inspection or
when re-loading a saved inspection data file.
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To
print the results to a printer or as a bitmap file.
The piston
inspection software collates data provided by the ultrasonic instrument
concerning the flaw detection of pistons. This data is stored
analysed and displayed following each piston test, and furthermore,
the software will compare the test results with the user definable
acceptance standards, and make an accept/reject decision. Finalised
test results are displayed following each test and can be saved
for future reference.
The Main Screen
of the piston inspection software is shown above, allows the use
of up to 8 Ultrasonic channels, to test different features associated
with Diesel engine pistons, which have an Al-Fin insert and/or
oil-cooling gallery
Mechanical
Handling Systems
A range of piston inspection systems are available for different
product diameter ranges. The following systems are available:
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Traditional 'Wellworthy' roller drive system, using Pulse Echo
only.
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Crown
Down system, which can use Pulse Echo, Through Transmission
or a combination of the two techniques.
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A
Fully Automatic system which is designed to fit in a manufacturing
line and is capable of 650 parts and hour through put rate.
In addition
to these systems we offer a custom design solution to meet our customer’s
exact requirement.
FOR
MORE INFORMATION PLEASE SEE: ULTRASONIC
INSPECTION EQUIPMENT FOR AL-FIN INSERT PISTONS (pdf format)
from our Technical Papers Library
To obtain this
information as an Adobe Acrobat document Click
Here.
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