Challenge
In high added value parts, the production process, or their actual lifetime in use, produces and gives rise to a series of defects – cracks, cavities, wear, flaws – that require the application of certain repair operations using filler material. The complex geometry of this type of parts has meant that the recomposition operations, carried out to date, have been done manually by specialized workers, entailing high process costs and long lead times.
Solution
In order to automate, optimize and improve the aforementioned filler operations, LORTEK has developed a work strategy based on, 1) the automatic 3D scanning of the areas to be filled, and 2) the subsequent calculation of the optimal and automatic filler material trajectories.
Through modern scanning technologies – rapid, automatable, multi-material – it is possible to obtain a “digital map” (CAD) of the part in question, which will be compared with the ideal image, thus obtaining the areas to be filled. These target regions are translated into optimal filler trajectories (CAM), which an automated cell then executes.
Benefits
This robotized strategy permits, in principle, an increase in productivity thanks to the process automation. Furthermore, on reducing times and quantity of material used, it keeps the production costs down as much as possible. Finally, it provides the process with versatility faced with the many different types of defects and cases.