Volkswagen’s department for quality assurance in plastics technology at its site in Braunschweig, Germany has installed a computed tomography workstation for analysis of highly complex plastic parts.
‘The analysis and evaluation of adjustment wheels used to regulate the airflow of the ventilation inside a car, is only one of numerous applications which we have to handle every day,’ commented Hans-Jürgen Knosalla, head of the measuring room for plastics technology at Volkswagen. The component, which is used inside cars like the Golf Plus and Tiguan, is checked with the CT equipment to ensure its dimensions are accurate.
Volkswagen is using the industrial computed tomography system exaCT M from Wenzel Volumetrik to inspect plastic parts. Computed tomography is a non-contact and non-destructive technology, able to inspect small flexible plastic parts and reveal their inner structures. The surface characteristics can also be determined and compared against a CAD model.
The measuring method of virtual probing offers many advantages. On the one hand there is unlimited access to the part and small structures can be measured without any limitations caused by a tactile probing sphere. Undercuts and inner structures can be evaluated in terms of dimensions without destructing the part.
‘Since we have our computed tomography workstation exaCT M in use we were able to double our throughput of measured parts,’ said Knosalla. ‘For the integration of a computed tomography system, the required space of the system was crucial. The exaCT computed tomography systems had the best ratio of required space and measuring volume. Furthermore the data quality of the system was convincing.’
