Innovate!

HPI (High Performance Industrietechnik GmbH), headquartered in Landshofen, Austria, develops, designs, manufactures and delivers turnkey plants for the light metal indust.

HPI innovated and developed an automated conductivity measurement system for non-destructive material inspection for one of its metallurgical custome.

Build a system that verifies conductivity at line speed

HPI manufactures a system to conduct conductivity testing to evaluate the heat-treated condition of aluminum shee.

The metallurgical company needed to equip its new rolling mill with the system, which includes cold rolling mills, hot rolling mills and sheet heat treatme.

The challenge for HPI was to develop a system that required high-speed measurement of aluminum plate conductivity while maintaining consistent test performan.

Large aluminum sheets being transported on the roller table of the production line

Why Manufacturers Need to Measure Metal Conductivity

By measuring the electrical conductivity, it is possible to determine the degree to which the material allows current to pass, that is, the current conducting properties of the material can be determin.

Many industries are introducing conductivity testing into their quality control and manufacturing process.

The electrical conductivity of aluminum used in aircraft construction must be measured to understand its ability to discharge, thereby ensuring the material's ability to withstand material stress during events such as lightning strik.

Advantages, disadvantages and typical defects of aluminum

Aluminum is less dense than other common meta.

Another great advantage of aluminum alloys is corrosion resistance, which increases the durability of the aircra.

Aluminum components are susceptible to various types of corrosion, including:

• Surface pitting

• intergranular corrosion

• exfoliation corrosion

• Stress Corrosion Cracking (SCC)

• fatigue cracking

• fretting wear

Manufacturing processes such as machining, forming, welding or heat treating can leave stress on the aluminum sheet (and therefore on the aircraft par.

Advantages of Eddy Current NDT Technology in Aerospace Applications

Eddy current non-destructive testing (NDT) technology is a non-contact inspection method for metal par.

EDT can be used to perform the following tests:

• surface inspection

• Subsurface inspection (usually 3-4 mm)

Advantages of Eddy Current Technology:

• Retain paint and coatings for inspection (no paint stripping required)

• Less surface preparation (fouling can be retained for inspection)

• Easy to use, requires less training

• Provides fast results for high-speed inspection and inspection of large parts

• Works with any conductive material, including metals commonly used in aircraft such as aluminum, stainless steel, and steel

How Eddy Current Testing Equipment Works

(A) The alternating current flowing into the coil produces a magnetic field (blu.

When alternating current is passed through one or more coils in an ECT probe assembly and the probe is brought close to a part made of conductive material, an alternating magnetic field is created that induces eddy currents into the pa.

Discontinuities or characteristic changes in the test part can alter the flow of eddy currents, which can affect the probe's working inductive reactan.

Aluminum Sheet Conductivity Measurement Solutions from HPI

This video shows a demonstration of the HPI solution, an automated system for high-speed conductivity measurement of aluminum shee.

(Refer to internationally recognized standards ASTME 1004-02, MIL STD1537C, EN2004-1, and AMS 2772F, as well as custom test specifications for the aerospace industry, to predefine measurement procedures for each sheet met.

”—Aluminum Times)

Aluminium plate conductivity measurement system with integrated NORTEC 600 ECT unit

HPI has used manual equipment for this type of production line testing in the past; but as speed and quality requirements increase, especially for the aerospace industry, manual testing has become obsole.

Olympus' NORTEC 600 Eddy Current Flaw Detector, combined with HPI's fully automated inspection system, provides a more reliable, time- and cost-effective soluti.

HPI configured its own application software for this solution, basically integrating the NORTEC 600 unit as a sensor into the syst.

HPI specifically chose the NORTEC 600 device over other eddy current flaw detectors because the instrument provides an interface to communicate with a programmable logic controller (PL.

The system automatically performs a calibration check on each metal plate before and after conductivity measuremen.

Because of its fast inspection speed, hundreds of inspection points that take hours to manually measure can be measured in minut.

HPI's customers use two of these systems, each equipped with two NORTEC 600 flaw detecto.

As a quality control process, conductivity quality checks help improve HPI's heat treatment process and increase customer satisfacti.

About the NORTEC 600 Eddy Current Flaw Detector

The NORTEC 600 Eddy Current Flaw Detector is a portable device incorporating advanced digital circuit.

NORTEC 600 units can be easily and seamlessly integrated into inspection syste.

The purpose of this unit is to provide consistent performance in industrial environmen.

NORTEC 600 specifications and features are designed with integrators such as HPI in mi.

• Designed to meet IP66 requirements

• −10°C to 50°C operating temperature range

• Continuous Balance Filter

• Strip chart view with sweep alarm

• 6 kHz measurement rate

• Remote control via NORTEC PC software

• Alarm Output

• Analog output

• digital input

NDT equipment for quality control

HPI chose to integrate the Olympus NORTEC 600 Eddy Current Flaw Detector into its automated NDT solution because the flaw detector enables fast and reliable conductivity measurements without touching the material surfa.

 

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400-969-0456