New strategy for automated repair of high value-added parts
Participants:
Programme:
Sectors:
Steel mills and foundries
Automation
Boiler making and metal processing
Defence
Renewable energy
Moulds and dies
Naval
Oil&Gas
Technologies:
Data analysis
Control and Robotics
DED-Arc
Arc
Computer vision
Scope
In the life cycle of high added-value products and parts, their production process or service life causes and leads to defects, such as cracks, holes, wear and tear or imperfections, which require the application of certain repairs and/or restructuring by means of material deposition. The complex geometry of these parts means that until now restructuring operations have been carried manually by specialised operators, which results in high costs and long lead times.
Clients require automation, optimisation and improvement of the aforementioned material deposition operations.
Solution
LORTEK has developed an operating strategy based on: (1) automatic 3D scanning of the areas to be filled; and (2) subsequent calculation of optimal and automatic material deposition paths.
Modern scanning technology are fast and automated and produce a "digital map" (CAD) of the part in question, which is compared with an ideal image to obtain areas to be treated. These target areas are then translated into the optimal input trajectories (CAM) that are subsequently followed by a robotic cell.
This automation strategy results in increased productivity, traceability and repeatability, or process standardisation. In addition, since times and quantity of material used are reduced, production costs are kept to a minimum. Finally, it provides the process with versatility in the face of a multitude of defects and cases.
