Page 28 - ITAtube-journal_2-13

In recent years the Rollforming
industry has evolved significantly,
certainly since the arrival of CAD
and modern roll tool and flower
development technologies, such
as COPRA® RF and COPRA® FEA RF,
the complexity of roll forming has
grown exponentially. Some 15 years
ago not many manufacturers were
producing machines with more
than 30 stations available; nowa-
days it is not uncommon to hear of
machines with 60+ stations being
manufactured. With this growth we
have seen some strange and inter-
esting geometries being developed
and proposed for the roll forming
process. Quite frankly some shapes
were inconceivable in former times;
often these geometries would have
to have been extruded. This is
clearly coupled with people’s new
found expectations of the process,
albeit for complexity, quality and
accuracy. To accommodate these
complex new geometries and to
meet the quality criteria outlined
by the end user, roll forming or-
ganisations have quite often had
to devise complex, strategic and
often cumbersome inspection pro-
cedures; that is until now ...
Last year data M in Bavaria has
successfully patented and launched
the COPRA® ProfileScan Desktop at
EuroBlech 2012, which is a “World
First” single head rotational laser
inspection device, their intention
being, to drive down the time and
cost often associated with inspec-
tion and allowing simple and com-
plex cross sections to be inspected
in seconds and not minutes!
The device is portable, hence the
desktop name and can thus easily
be transported around the facil-
ity and moreover the world as it
currently suits airline carry on re-
quirements, thus even suiting the
global test engineer and in com-
parison to on-line laser inspection
techniques, where we would have 4
lasers we now have only one, so its
effectively a quarter of the price!
Let us now consider how this de-
vice can save us time and of course
money, otherwise “how could we
justify such a contraption”, I hear
you ask. Well its simple, essen-
tially the time taken to inspect a
cross section in itself is now lit-
erally seconds and not minutes.
Whether were talking about a sim-
ple “Channel” or a complex “Star”
shape (as to the right) which has
over fifteen inspection features,
once the initial measurement tem-
plate is defined, it literally takes a
maximum of 90 seconds to inspect
and record (no writing involved
here), automatically the measure-
ment geometry of our profile, and
the interface will also illustrate if
we are within tolerance by use of
a simplistic traffic light system.
Blue = Cold (Below Defined Toler-
ance), Red = Hot (Above Defined
Tolerance) and Green = Go (Within
Defined Tolerance).
When we contemplate traditional
inspection methods an approaches
of complex shapes, we quite often
think about taking a sample from
28 ITAtube Journal No2/September 2013
Companies
The future in profile inspection
data M Sheet Metal Solutions GmbH – Germany