Observability of quality features of sheet metal parts based on metamodels

Deep drawn sheet metal parts are increasingly designed to the feasibility limit, thus achieving a robust process is often challenging. The fluctuation of process and material properties often leads to robustness problems. Especially skid impact lines can cause visible changes of the surface fine structure even after painting. Numerical simulations are used to detect critical regions and the influences on the skid impact lines. To enhance the agreement with the real process conditions, the measured material data and the force distribution are taken into account. The simulation metamodel contains the virtual knowledge of a particular forming process, which is determined based on a series of finite element simulations with variable input parameters. Based on these metamodels, innovative process windows can be displayed to determine the influences on the critical regions and on skid impact lines. By measuring the draw-in of the part, sensor positions can be identified. Each sensor observes the accordant quality criterion and is hence able to quantify potential splits, insufficient stretching, wrinkles or skid impact lines. Furthermore the virtual draw-in sensors and quality criteria are particularly useful for the assessment of the process observation of a subsequent process control

Vorrichtung zum Bearbeiten von Wand- und Dachflaechen

DE 10023482 A UPAB: 20020416 NOVELTY - The device has an advancing mechanism (3), a processing tool (4) and a positioning unit with a guide cable (9). The positioning unit has a balloon (1) filled with a light gas and connected to a cable for positioning and orientation. The advancing mechanism and the processing tool are fixed to the balloon. A counterweight may be fixed to the advancing mechanism and the processing tool. USE - To process wall and roof inner surfaces. ADVANTAGE - Free positioning independent of surface to be processed. Inaccessible surfaces can be reached without additional measures

Cleaning automation

The potential applications of automation for cleaning are many and diverse. All over the world, research organizations and companies are developing automatic cleaning systems [70.1]. Products such as automatic floor cleaning robots and floor vacuum cleaners available for household use are sold ten thousand times over every year at prices below US $300 (Fig. 70.1). While versatile, high-performance systems exist for other applications such as professional floor cleaning, airplane washing, ship cleaning, and facade cleaning, they are by no means as widespread as household systems

Observability of quality features of sheet metal parts based on metamodels

Deep drawn sheet metal parts are increasingly designed to the feasibility limit, thus achieving a robust process is often challenging. The fluctuation of process and material properties often leads to robustness problems. Especially skid impact lines can cause visible changes of the surface fine structure even after painting. Numerical simulations are used to detect critical regions and the influences on the skid impact lines. To enhance the agreement with the real process conditions, the measured material data and the force distribution are taken into account. The simulation metamodel contains the virtual knowledge of a particular forming process, which is determined based on a series of finite element simulations with variable input parameters. Based on these metamodels, innovative process windows can be displayed to determine the influences on the critical regions and on skid impact lines. By measuring the draw-in of the part, sensor positions can be identified. Each sensor observes the accordant quality criterion and is hence able to quantify potential splits, insufficient stretching, wrinkles or skid impact lines. Furthermore the virtual draw-in sensors and quality criteria are particularly useful for the assessment of the process observation of a subsequent process control

Kinematics, sensors and control of the fully automated facade-cleaning robot SIRIUSc for the Fraunhofer headquarters building, Munich

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to describe how the Fraunhofer institute for Factory Operation and Automation (IFF) has developed the automatic facade-cleaning robot SIRIUSc for use on the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft's headquarters, a high-rise building in Munich, Germany. Design/methodology/approach - The building has a height of 80 m, its facade an area of 4,000 m(2). Apart from the robot that moves along and cleans the facade, the complete, fully automated system consists of a fully automated gantry that secures, supplies energy to and, above all, positions the robot. Part of the project involved completely automating a standard gantry, which is an integral part of the complete facade-cleaning robot system. Findings - This paper presents an overview of the significant basic functions of the robot and the gantry, emphasizing the kinematics, the control and sensor systems for navigation and the cleaning sequence that employs the extensive fully automatic functions of the robot and gantry. Originality/value - The paper presents the first freely climbing facade-cleaning robot for vertical facades without rails effectively in use in Europe