JP3322823B2 - Automatic pouring equipment - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic pouring apparatus for casting, and more particularly to a means for measuring the level of molten metal automatically poured into a mold.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Casting is performed by pouring molten metal such as iron into a mold from a container called a ladle that stores molten metal such as iron. At that time, if the mold level in the mold is low, air will enter the mold and nests will form.If the mold level is high, the casting surface will be roughened and sand will result, and the position of the mold level in the mold will depend on the quality of the casting. Significantly affects improvement. Therefore, at the time of pouring, measure the surface level,
It is necessary to pouring while maintaining the level of the molten metal surface in the mold at a determined height, for example, about 8 minutes as a guide,
An example of the pouring device is shown below with reference to FIG.

In the figure, (1) is a mold, (2) is a ladle,
(3) is a pouring level sensor. The mold (1) comprises a cylindrical cup body having an upper opening gate (1a). The ladle (2) is a container that stores the molten metal (4) inside and is disposed so as to be tiltable up and down diagonally above the gate (1a).
The pouring spout (2a) is tilted by a tilting operation with a handle or the like, and the molten metal (4) is poured into the mold (1) through the sprue (1a).
Is automatically poured. The pouring level sensor (3) is
The image of the molten metal (4) is taken obliquely from above by an imaging means such as a CCD camera arranged diagonally above in (a), and the molten metal heights (Ha), (Hb)... are measured.

[0004] According to the above configuration, the pouring level sensor (3) captures an image of the molten metal surface from obliquely above the gate (1a). Then, a part of the molten metal surface enters the blind spot area (A) of the level sensor (3) by the mold side wall, and
The area (A) fluctuates in proportion to the molten metal level (Ha) (Hb). Therefore, the area of the imaging surfaces (Fa), (Fb)... By the level sensor (3) is
b).., and the molten metal heights (Ha), (Hb)... can be determined from the molten metal images of the imaging surfaces (Fa), (Fb).
The hot water level (Ha) (Hb) ... is measured by that,
Pouring while stably maintaining the determined desired height.

[0005]

The problem to be solved is that the imaging surfaces (Fa) and (F) are obliquely viewed from the gate (1a).
Since the molten metal (4) is waved because the image of (b) is taken, the height of the molten metal is not stable because the height of the molten metal is imaged and the molten metal surface image is not stable.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to provide an automatic casting pouring apparatus capable of stably measuring a molten metal level image and stably measuring a molten metal level.

[0007]

According to the present invention, there is provided a trumpet-shaped cup body whose width is enlarged from a bottom to a gate opening upward.
The molten metal is automatically poured through the sprue and a mold with a different surface area according to the height of the spout, and placed almost directly above the spout, two-dimensional with the entire area of the spout in view And a level sensor for measuring the level of the molten metal, which eliminates obstructive factors from the level image captured by the level measuring sensor.
The image area of the circle window or the circumscribed rectangle,
It is characterized in that the level of the molten metal is measured by fuzzy inference from the image area .

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a casting automatic pouring device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. First, FIG. 1 shows a partial cross-sectional side view of an automatic pouring apparatus according to the present invention. In the figure, (2) is a ladle for storing molten metal as in the prior art, (7) is a mold, and (8) is a height measuring sensor. It is. The mold (7) has a sprue (7a) having an upper opening and an inclined side wall (7b), and is formed of a trumpet-shaped cup body whose width is increased upward from the bottom. Therefore, ladle (2) by tilting
When the molten metal (4) is automatically poured into the mold (7) through the gate (7a), the cup width becomes equal to the surface height (Ha) (Hb).
Since the temperature changes in proportion to ..., the surface level (Ha) (Hb)
The surface area (fa) of the molten metal varies in proportion to. The height measurement sensor (8) is arranged almost directly above the gate (7a), and is an imaging means such as a CCD camera that covers the entire area of the gate (7a). An image is obtained by taking an image.

Here, as shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the molten metal (4) has a slag (black impurity in the molten metal) (5), or the gas contained in the mold (7) is ignited and the gate is ignited. (7a)
When a flame (6) is generated near the surface, the surface is affected by the flame (6), and the surface area (fa) of the molten metal is determined according to the molten metal height (Ha) (Hb).
... is not accurately reflected, making it difficult to measure the level of the molten metal. Therefore, one height measurement sensor (8) is switched to take in a normal surface, a surface with a flame (6), and a surface with a ladle (5), or according to the presence or absence of disturbance. A dedicated camera is provided, and for example, a normal hot surface, a hot surface with a flame (6), and a hot surface with a ladle (5) are imaged with three cameras, respectively, or one with two cameras. The image may be switched and imaged.

The operation of the present invention based on the above configuration will now be described. First, it is assumed that the height measurement sensor (8) takes a two-dimensional image of the molten metal surface shape of the entire gate surface to obtain a molten metal surface image (Pa) shown in FIG. Then, the gate (7a)
Is imaged in a two-dimensional plane, the waving of the molten metal surface is averaged, and a wavy image such as a wave height does not appear in the molten metal surface image (Pa), and a stable captured image is obtained. Moreover, the height of the hot water (H
The surface area (fa) of the metal surface fluctuates in proportion to a), and the surface area decreases as the metal surface falls to the bottom of the mold, and increases as the metal surface rises upward. Therefore, the height (Ha) of the molten metal surface can be accurately measured from the image area (Sa) of the molten metal surface image (Pa) by the height measurement sensor (8).

Here, as described above, when there is a ladle (5) in the molten metal (4) or when a flame (6) is generated near the surface of the gate, the molten metal (4) is affected by the influence of the molten metal (4) and the height of the molten metal (Ha) is affected. ) (Hb) ...
Does not accurately reflect the surface area (fa) of the molten metal, and it becomes difficult to measure the height of the molten metal. Therefore, for example, FIG.
As shown in (c), a hot water image (Pb) including a flame image (Pd) and a hot water image (Pc) including a slow image (Pe)
Is obtained, image processing is performed on each of the molten metal images (Pb) and (Pc), and the molten metal heights (Ha), (Hb)... measure.

That is, first, when there is a flame (6), FIG.
As shown in (d), after a circular window (W) that captures only the inside of the gate opening edge is subjected to image processing over the molten metal surface image (Pb), the image area (Sb) in the circular window (W) is measured, and the opening is measured. The surrounding flame image (Pd) is not captured as a captured image. Next, if there is a slack (5), as shown in FIG. 2 (e), the center of gravity of the image obtained by removing the filtered image (Pe) from the hot water image (Pc) is calculated, and the center of gravity is calculated. First, the image area (Sc) of the circumscribed rectangle (Ps) is calculated by drawing a line in the XY direction by the average number of pixels in the XY direction of the hot water surface image (Pc) and converting it to a circumscribed rectangle (Ps) having the same center of gravity.

Next, the image area (Sa) (Sb) (S
From c), the molten metal level (Ha) is determined by fuzzy inference. The fuzzy inference is performed by a probability determining means. First, a membership function (M) for fuzzy surface level shown in FIG. 2 (f) is created. The membership function (M) is calculated based on the image area (Sa) (Sb) (S
The probability distribution of the surface level for c) is drawn, and (N
a) (Nb) (Nc) (Nd) are normal images (P
a), Slow image (Pc), Flame image (Pb)
Each of the fuzzy sets of images having abnormalities such as hot water spills and the like, the horizontal axis represents the measurement area (S), and the vertical axis represents the degree of conformity (h) to the target value of the molten metal level.

For example, if (Sm) is measured as the measurement area (S), the fuzzy sets (Na) (Nb) (N
c) Each fitness (h) in (Nd) is (ha), 0,
(Hc), 0, and ha> hc, so that the molten metal surface image approaches the target molten metal surface height of the normal image. If (Sn) is measured as the measurement area (S), the fuzzy set (N
a) Each fitness (h) in (Nb) (Nc) (Nd)
Is 0, 0, 1, 0, and the hot water level image matches the target hot water level of the image having a flame.

[0015] This makes it possible to calculate the level of the molten metal, and to simultaneously discriminate between obstructive factors such as sluggishness and flame and abnormalities.

[0016]

According to the present invention, in a casting automatic pouring apparatus, a molten metal is automatically poured into a mold whose diameter is increased upward.
From the surface image of the gate that is two-dimensionally imaged from almost directly above the gate
A rectangular window or a circumscribed rectangle with no obstruction
Since the image area was calculated and the level was calculated from the image area by fuzzy inference , the level image was stabilized and the level measurement accuracy was greatly improved. Quality can be ensured.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a partial sectional side view showing an embodiment of an automatic pouring apparatus according to the present invention.

FIGS. 2 (a), (b) and (c) are images of a normal hot surface, a hot hot surface and a hot hot surface, respectively, taken by a height measuring sensor according to the present invention. (D) and (e) are processed images of a hot and cold lane image. (F) is a graph of the membership function of fuzzy inference according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a partial sectional side view showing an example of a conventional automatic pouring apparatus.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 4 molten metal 7 mold 7a gate 8 height measurement sensor fa surface area of molten metal Ha height of molten metal

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (58) Field surveyed (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) B22D 37/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] 1. A flared cup body having a width expanded from a bottom to a sprue having an upper opening. The molten metal is automatically poured through the sprue, and the surface area of the molten metal differs according to the height of the molten metal. And a mold level measuring sensor that is arranged almost directly above the gate and captures the entire area of the gate in a field of view and two-dimensionally captures the image. The level image captured by the height measuring sensor. In or out of a circular window with impediments removed
The image area of the tangent rectangle is calculated, and the fuzzy
An automatic pouring device that measures the level of the molten metal by inference .