The Creaform HandyScan AeroPack is a new 3D scanning solution suite that addresses the specific challenges of aircraft quality control, such as assessing damage from hailstorms or aircraft incidents, as well as flap and spoiler inspection. HandyScan AeroPack can also be used for reverse engineering, maintenance and repair operations, and designing hard-to-acquire spare parts. The suite is available in the UK from Measurement Solutions.

Creaform’s HandyScan AeroPack includes HandyScan 3D, a metrology-grade, portable 3D scanner designed to acquire accurate, repeatable and reliable measurements – even in difficult environments, such as aircraft hangers or shop floors, and with both complex surfaces and parts of all sizes. Also featured is SmartDent 3D, an aircraft surface inspection software for assessing aircraft flaps, spoilers and fuselage panels. VXinspect, a dimensional inspection software module for quality control workflows and inspection reports, and VXmodel, a post-treatment software module to finalise and further process 3D scan data in any CAD solution, complete the offer.
Simple and intuitive to use by operators of any skill level, HandyScan AeroPack makes quality control and reverse engineering processes efficient by reducing user impact on measurement results and accelerating the generation time for final reports or CAD designs.
HandyScan 3D is listed in the Airbus Technical Equipment Manual, and is part of Boeing’s Service Letter, meaning it can be used for recording the physical attributes of dents on all Boeing commercial aircraft.
“Aerospace is facing increasing challenges due to manufacturers’ accelerated innovation, stricter regulatory standards, heightened concerns for passenger safety, mounting costs of grounded aircraft and profitability targets,” explains Jérôme-Alexandre Lavoie, product manager at Creaform. “As the HandyScan AeroPack was developed with these challenges in mind, aircraft and MRO companies can now tackle them head on.”
For further information www.creaform3d.com

Italian subcontract manufacturer, R Busi, has made a strategic decision to move to five-axis CMMs. The use of Renishaw five-axis measurement heads has enabled the company to meet the verification needs of increasingly complex part designs and deliver the tolerances and repeatability required.

R Busi operates from a 22,000 sq m facility in Mezzanino, where its factory houses 40 production machines that include lathes, five-axis vertical milling machines and four-axis horizontal machining centres. Some 40 production personnel are employed, working in two shifts.
The five-axis measurement technology adopted by the company had to provide the flexibility required to verify a highly diverse range of parts produced for a range of sectors.
Initially, the company had a measurement head retrofitted to an existing three-axis CMM. Once the system was proven, two new CMMs were added, both specified to include five-axis measurement heads at the outset. Renishaw’s Revo and PH20 five-axis measurement systems were selected.
Head of quality at R Busi, Paolo Orlandi, says: “We already used Renishaw machine probes throughout our production processes, so equipping a dedicated measuring room with closely related technology from the same supplier was a logical and easy step to take. Since our production activities can often include some quite complex bespoke parts, we really wanted to adopt something a little better than a standard three-axis CMM; something that would give us the accuracy, flexibility and speed needed.”
The introduction of five-axis measurement technology has had a wide-ranging impact on R Busi’s precision manufacturing operations, as Orlandi explains: “By dramatically increasing measurement speed and significantly reducing production downtime, the business has gained a serious productivity advantage.”
For further information www.renishaw.com

Bowers Group has introduced the Innovatest BIOS Brinell optical scanner into the UK market. This handheld optical scanning device can be easily connected to a standard laptop, tablet or any device running a Windows 10 operating system, and includes easy-to-install software for measuring Brinell indents in just a 10th of a second.

Martin Hawkins, UK sales manager for Bowers Group, says: “The Innovatest Brinell BIOS scan system has been designed to make the daily testing of Brinell indents faster, more accurate and more reliable. As all materials have different finishes, fast light adjustment is mandatory for Brinell indent measurement. With this in mind, the system’s scroll wheel provides a fast way of experimenting with the correct light setting, which can then be stored for the current application.”
Applicable to Brinell indents of 10, 5, 2 and 1 mm, BIOS features a camera and electronics built around a telecentric lens with an adjustable direct-LED module. This module enables the illumination of shadowed areas around the indents, resulting in a crisp, high-resolution image.
“Quickly performing repeatable, high-precision measurements is critical when looking to maximise the efficiency of Brinell measurements,” says Hawkins. “The telecentric lens allows the highest possible accuracy to be achieved. Not only that, it’s very easy to use; no special skills are required for operating the unit.”
Users of the Innovatest BIOS Brinell optical scanner can also save the results in a CSV file, which can be easily imported into Microsoft applications such as Word and Excel for further statistical processing or reporting.
For further information www.bowersgroup.co.uk

A collaboration agreement has been signed between Lantek and the multinational HSG Laser Group.

Under this agreement, HSG will make it possible to integrate the Lantek Expert CADCAM solution with its different fibre laser cutting machines, which are available in power outputs up to 12 kW. “The sheet metal and fabrication sector is at a critical moment and must take a step towards digitalisation,” says Lantek CEO Alberto López de Biñaspre. “Companies need to interconnect their machines, processes and plants around the world using technologies that allow them to meet production needs in real time.”
For further information www.lantek.com

Siemens Digital Industries Software has signed an agreement to acquire Atlas 3D, a developer of software that works with direct metal laser sintering (DMLS) printers to automatically provide design engineers with the optimal print orientation and requisite support structures for additive parts in near real-time.

The acquisition will expand the additive manufacturing capabilities in the Xcelerator portfolio of software.
Sunata software by Atlas 3D uses thermal distortion analysis to provide a simple, automated way to optimise part build orientation and generate support structures. This approach allows the designer, rather than the analyst, to perform these simulations, reducing the downstream analysis that needs to be conducted via Simcenter software to achieve a part that meets design requirements.
For further information https://atlas3d.xyz/