Drive and control specialist Bosch Rexroth has reported two years of maintenance-free production at its plant in Schweinfurt, Germany, following the installation of its own Integrated Measuring Systems (IMS) on its machine tools, a move that has saved the company tens of thousands of euros in maintenance and running costs.
The plant, which manufactures precision linear motion components such as profiled rails, runner blocks and ball screw drives, as well as entire linear motion systems, has not experienced a single instance of machine downtime, while producing materials with a repeatability of ±0.25 µm.
Bosch Rexroth has now converted its cost savings into a “Total Cost of Ownership“ tool, which allows manufacturers to calculate their own savings, as well as the potential savings for mechanical engineers and end users.
Until 2014, Bosch Rexroth relied on optical position sensors, or glass scales, to achieve the desired accuracy with its metal-cutting equipment. These solutions were expensive because they required regular cleaning and maintenance. At times, they were even responsible for machine failures because they were prone to introducing contaminants. As a result, Bosch Rexroth installed IMS, which can detect the absolute position of an axis down to ±3 µm/m, into its ball and roller runner blocks.
“Accuracy requirements are becoming more exacting in virtually every metal machining application,” says Stefan Dorn, head of advanced engineering and technical product management for linear motion technology. “To meet this challenge, Bosch Rexroth has been using its maintenance-free IMS solutions in upgraded machine tools for more than two years. Since replacing the glass scales, we have achieved five-figure savings in terms of maintenance costs and availability.”
For further information
www.boschrexroth.com

Creaform has announced that it will extend its expertise in NDT to the aerospace industry. By expanding access to its inspection solutions, the company aims to better enable airlines, as well as MRO service companies, to more efficiently perform the evaluations of in-service aircraft safety, while cutting costs and saving downtime.
“As predictive maintenance becomes more prominent, aviation maintenance professionals and aircraft MRO providers are increasingly on the lookout for innovative methods that enable quicker and safer decisions to be made on the outcome of part defects,” says Steeves Roy, NDT product manager at Creaform. “The mapping of external surface defects on aircraft parts, which can prove difficult to obtain using traditional methods – namely hail damage, bird impacts and lightning strikes on the fuselage and wings – can be assessed with 3D scanning. When paired with advanced inspection tools, such a solution cuts down on the operator’s impact on measurements, shortens time to get the final report and reinforces decision making.”
To ensure that the solution matches aviation maintenance industry requirements and properly reflects market needs, Creaform is partnering with major aircraft manufacturers for beta testing. The surface inspection solution dedicated to aerospace applications is set for release in October 2017.
Well-known for its NDT solutions offered to the oil and gas industry, Creaform’s NDT product solution is comprised of its flagship HandyScan 3D portable metrology-grade 3D scanner and its Pipecheck NDT software, both of which allow automatic on-site inspection, detection and characterisation of pipeline defects. With traceable and repeatable inspection data and results, operators can access critical information for making safer decisions.
For further information
www.creaform3d.com

Midland Metrology Ltd is a long-standing specialist that has been providing a “total service to industry”, ever since its establishment by current managing director Bob Coles
in October 1988. The company is best known for stocking and supplying metrology application solutions such as optical profile projectors, CMMs, hardness testers and various other inspection, test and
calibration tools.
“We sell both new and used metrology equipment to sectors that include automotive, aerospace, medical and oil and gas,” says Coles. “The company prides itself on being able to respond to customer enquiries quickly, offering ready solutions to their problems. We can provide a fast and friendly service with an efficient turnaround of items in our calibration laboratory. The lab also provides a comprehensive inspection service for the measurement of customer components, which includes full detailed spreadsheet reporting.”
The company’s 4,000 sqft facility at Coventry features a dedicated showroom and dimensional temperature controlled laboratory. Equipment can be bought or sold and, as a concentrated specialist, Midland Metrology can source competitively priced solutions from a number of manufacturing brands.
Stock includes basic equipment such as micrometers, calipers, bore gauges, depth gauges and height gauges, while more sophisticated machines and equipment include profile projectors, video measuring machines, a full range of portable hardness testers, CMMs and roundness testers.
More recently, the company has introduced a range of brand new black granite products, and is now able to supply granite tables and surface plates, granite squares and tri-squares, straight edges, vee blocks, and parallels.
For further information
www.midland-metrology.co.uk

Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence has extended the accessory range for the Optiv Performance 663 and Optiv Performance 664 CMMs by adding two new CNC rotary tables and Optiv Dual Rotary CNC stacked rotary tables as options.
The use of the integrated CNC rotary axis increases overall inspection performance when measuring rotationally symmetrical parts. Such workpieces can be measured in a single set-up, as features distributed around the circumference of the part can be rotated into a position which is optimal for multi-sensor measurement. PC-DMIS measuring software takes the rotation of the workpiece co-ordinate system relative to the machine co-ordinate system into account. As a point of note, the Optiv Dual Rotary option allows the entire rotary axis to swivel on an additional axis so the sensors can reach geometries which are inclined to the longitudinal axis of the workpiece.
The tactile measurement of prismatic workpieces on a rotary table or stacked rotary table also offers improved efficiency as complex geometries become easily accessible with only a few simple styli configurations. This reduces the number of probe changes, as well as the number of axis movements.
Two sizes of CNC rotary table are available, offering maximum torques of 2 or 10 Nm, and centred load capacities of 900 or 1800 N. Depending on the version, self-centring, three-jaw chucks for diameters between 2 and 125 mm are optionally available. With the Optiv Dual Rotary option, two rotary tables are combined to enable two-axis rotations.
For further information
www.hexagonmi.com

The current world water speed record of 510.45 km/h was set by Australian Ken Warby in 1978. The four decades since then represent by far the longest period that the record has remained unsurpassed.
Harbouring the ultimate intention of bettering this impressive mark is ‘Longbow’ project leader, David Aldred, who says: “A jet hydroplane can be described as a pure thrust gas turbine or rocket powered boat, with a hull designed in such a way that when high speeds are achieved, the craft only has a few square inches of its surface in contact with the water surface, which in turn reduces hydrodynamic drag to a minimum.”
A major contributor to the Longbow project is Kevin Hardcastle, design engineer and founder of Aximo Ltd. To enable Hardcastle to produce the required drawings for analysis of the driver cockpit from the buck already fabricated, the assistance of Manchester Metrology’s laser scanning services was enlisted. Given the project’s demanding accuracy requirements, Neil Blakeman of Manchester Metrology used a Faro Edge ScanArm HD to scan the driver’s tub and capture the required data for conversion into a NURBS format.
“We decided to use the Faro Edge ScanArm HD as it has an accuracy specification of ±25 μm,” says Blakeman. “The arm combines the flexibility and functionalities of a Faro Edge measuring arm with a high-definition Laser Line Probe HD, giving us an ideal contact/non-contact portable measurement system.
“Also, as each of Longbow’s team of experts and technical contributors have ‘day jobs’ and give their time voluntarily, it was important to use a technology that could capture and process the required precise data in a timely fashion,” he adds.
For further information
www.faro.com