Dimensional Density The commercial introduction of 3D density measurement technology, which helps automate the AM process chain, has been announced by. Dimensionics claims that, as additive manufacturing becomes more widely adopted as a technology for production, the entire AM process chain will be under close scrutiny.
Phillipp Pruesse, Head of Sales at Dimensionics Density said: “Our technology plays straight into the need for automation in the area of validation and quality control of AM parts, and we have launched an array of tools focused on the determination of AM part density. The entire AM process chain must be automated if AM is to continue to disrupt manufacturing.
“Because of this, our density determination solutions are fully automated, and of vital importance, are designed to be used in production settings, not just in the laboratory. AM is known to be a design tool that encourages freedom of design, as it does not care about the complexity of a part. The density of AM parts is more difficult to determine as the geometric complexity increases. Dimensionics Density’s solutions can easily determine the density of freeform parts and highly complex AM parts can measure density repeatability to 0.001 g/cm3.”
It can cause problems as the porosity can reduce mechanical strength, stability, durability and make parts more susceptible to failure. The parts can be affected by the electrical and thermal properties, making them less resistant to high temperature, corrosives and other environmental factors.
It can also impact the performance of specific applications.
The company claims that the Dimensionics density system performs the measurement process fully automatically, after the samples are placed into the universal component carrier. The company says that environmental factors can influence the density measurement systems and control systems. These are considered when calculating density based on the measurement data.
Dimensionics claims that it allows for accuracy in determining the density. This is not possible in a typical industrial production environment.
According to the company, the machine is based on the Archimedes Principle. The machine measures the density by weighing the object in two different media. The first measurement usually takes place in the air and the second in a liquid medium of known density.
Dimensionics claims that positioning on the scale plays a key role in determining the accuracy of the results. This is because deviations from the mass centre and the resulting measurements off-centre of the component can lead to large deviations. According to the company, this is a reason why the common manual Archimedes measurement solutions are not viewed favourably across industry.
Pruesse added: “To counteract this problem and to ensure the repatability of the measurements, Dimensionics Density offers a universal carrier which can transport most parts, and which can be easily adapted if necessary for more complex geometries. The density determined is compared to the desired specifications and qualitatively more accurate assumptions about the density can be made.
“With a cycle time of less than 2 minutes per component and the possibility of inspecting up to 18 components simultaneously in one inspection process as standard, the Dimensionics Density solution supports the optimisation and efficiency of manufacturing processes.”
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