KR101544003B1 - Inspecting apparatus for casting products - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting a casted product. More specifically, the apparatus for inspecting a casting product inspects whether various foreign substances such as an abrasive material exists on the surface of a casted product. According to the present invention, the apparatus for inspecting a casting product comprises: a test stand (110) having the same surface shape as the surface to be inspected of an object to be inspected (T); a sensor detecting a gap between the test stand (110) and the object to be inspected (T) due to the foreign substances existing on the object to be inspected (T); and a determination device determining whether the foreign substances exist on the surface of the object to be inspected (T).

Description

[0001] DESCRIPTION [0002] Inspecting apparatus for casting products [

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an apparatus for inspecting a casting product, and more particularly to a casting product inspecting apparatus for inspecting whether or not various foreign substances such as an abrasive remain on a surface of a cast product.

Generally, a product having a complex shape such as a gear housing for a vehicle is produced through a casting process of injecting molten metal into a mold, and the produced cast product is subjected to a post-process for removing various foreign substances remaining on the surface thereof .

For example, a cast product is subjected to barrelling for surface treatment and burr removal. When the barrel polishing is finished, the abrasive remains on the casting product and must be removed by cleaning.

Particularly, when a plurality of gears are installed in the interior of a gear housing such as a vehicle, removal of foreign matters is necessary because abrasion of a very small size or other various foreign substances causes wear or malfunction of the gear.

However, conventionally, a method of visually confirming whether or not a foreign substance remains in the casting product is used. Therefore, it was difficult to find when the size of the foreign substance was small or the foreign matter was the same color as the cast product.

Accordingly, in various publications including Korean Patent Publication No. 2007-0047174 and Korean Patent No. 1187116, an apparatus for inspecting the presence or absence of a foreign substance using a sensor has been proposed instead of directly checking with the naked eye.

However, the conventional techniques described above can detect a foreign object by emitting a sensing signal to the object being conveyed, but it is not suitable for an inspection object having a complex shape and a three-dimensional shape like a mold product.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned problems, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a casting product inspection apparatus for inspecting whether or not various foreign substances such as abrasives remain on the surface of a cast product having a complicated shape.

To this end, the apparatus for inspecting a casting product according to the present invention comprises: a test table having the same surface shape as that of a surface to be inspected of the test object so that the cast inspection object is closely contacted; A detection sensor embedded in various positions of the inspection table and detecting a gap between the inspection table and the inspection object due to foreign matter remaining on the inspection object; And a discrimination device which receives a detection value from the detection sensor and discriminates the presence or absence of foreign matter remaining on the surface of the object in accordance with the presence or absence of the gap.

Preferably, the detection sensor is a non-contact type detection sensor that emits a detection signal toward the surface of the object to be inspected and receives a detection signal reflected after colliding with the object to be inspected.

The discrimination device may further comprise a standard value storage unit for storing a standard value used for discriminating the presence or absence of the foreign matter; And a comparison unit that receives the detection value from the detection sensor and compares the detection value with the standard value to determine the presence or absence of the foreign substance.

A sensor label storage unit for storing the position of the detection sensor in the inspection table; A three-dimensional shape storage unit for storing a three-dimensional shape of the object to be inspected; And a control unit for receiving the position of the detection sensor that detects the foreign object from the sensor label storage unit and detecting and providing the position of the object to be inspected from which the foreign matter is detected from the three dimensional shape storage unit .

It is preferable that the inspection object has a plurality of inspection surfaces, and the inspection table has the same number as the number of inspection surfaces, and each inspection table has the same surface as the different inspection surfaces.

In addition, it is preferable that the transfer robot further includes a transfer robot for picking up the inspected object from one inspection table and transferring it to another inspection table.

Since the present invention has the same surface shape as that of the object to be inspected, if the foreign object is not present, the object to be inspected is closely adhered to the object.

Further, by using the detection sensor, the interval between the inspection object and the object to be inspected, which occurs when foreign matter remains, is detected.

Therefore, even in the case of an object to be inspected having a complicated three-dimensional shape, it is possible to precisely check whether or not various foreign substances remain.

1 is a schematic sectional view showing a casting product testing apparatus according to the present invention.
FIGS. 2A and 2B illustrate an apparatus for inspecting the outer surface of a casting product in a casting product testing apparatus according to the present invention.
3A and 3B show another embodiment of an apparatus for inspecting the inner surface of a casting product in a casting product testing apparatus according to the present invention.
4 is a view showing a method of detecting a foreign substance with one detection sensor in the casting product inspection apparatus according to the present invention.
FIG. 5 is a view illustrating a method of detecting a foreign substance with several detection sensors in a casting product testing apparatus according to the present invention.
6 is a block diagram showing an apparatus for determining a casting product inspection apparatus according to the present invention.
7 is a view showing the inspection object transfer robot of the casting product inspection apparatus according to the present invention.

Hereinafter, a casting product testing apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Hereinafter, a gear housing for a vehicle will be described as an example of a cast product to be inspected. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and the present invention can be applied without any particular limitations as long as the product is a molded product with complicated shapes.

1, the present invention includes a test table 110 for inspecting a manufactured inspection object T, a detection sensor 120 for detecting a gap between the inspection table 110 and the object to be inspected T, And a discrimination device 130 for analyzing the detected value of the sensor 120 and judging the existence of the foreign substance.

The present invention having such a configuration is particularly useful for checking whether foreign matter remains in various cast products, for example, a gear housing for a vehicle such as a gear housing for a steering device, a gear housing for seat angle adjustment, and a wiper motor gear housing.

For example, a product having a complicated shape is produced through a casting process of injecting molten metal into a mold, followed by barrel polishing or the like for surface treatment and removal of burrs.

At this time, in the conventional method, the inspector directly confirms whether or not the abrasive remains in the casting product, but the present invention inspects whether the abrasive remains through the casting product inspection apparatus precisely.

Casting products are very complex in shape, so it is difficult to identify all the corners, abrasives are very small in size, or they are very similar in color to casting products, making it difficult to identify them with eyes.

Accordingly, it is possible to accurately detect the presence of foreign substances such as abrasives through the present invention. Therefore, it is necessary to determine the necessity of cleaning to remove foreign substances such as abrasives, and to remove foreign matter and to provide various gears installed in the gear housing, prevent.

More specifically, the inspection table 110 has the same surface shape as a surface to be inspected of the inspection object T so that the inspection object T (that is, the cast product) manufactured by casting is tightly coupled. The surface shape of the inspection table 110 is largely divided into an engraved or embossed shape.

For example, the gear housing usually protrudes outwardly so as to accommodate a gear assembly including various gears therein, so that its outer side is convex and its inner side is concave.

Therefore, when inspecting the outer surface of the convexly protruding gear housing, the inspection table 110 engraved with the inspection surface 110 is used. When inspecting the inner surface of the recessed gear housing, the inspection table 110 ) Is used.

2A illustrates a test stand 110_OUT having an engraved surface pattern P-OUT to inspect the outer surface of the gear housing, FIG. 3A illustrates a surface pattern embossed to inspect the inner surface of the gear housing, 0.0 > 110-IN < / RTI >

On the other hand, the inspection table 110 (110_OUT, 110_IN) may be used while being fixedly mounted on the work table, or may be fixedly mounted on the mounting block (B) as shown in the general case.

The inspection is carried out by moving the inspection object T onto the fixed inspection stand 110 and aligning the inspection stand 110 and the inspection object T so that they are correctly engaged with each other. Then, the inspection object T is lowered, When it starts.

Next, the detection sensor 120 is used to detect the gap between the inspection table 110 and the object to be inspected (T). That is, when a foreign object such as an abrasive material remains on the surface of the object to be inspected T, the detection sensor 120 detects that the object is not fully engaged with the object to be inspected 110 and a gap is generated.

For this, the detection sensor 120 is embedded in the inspection table 110. If the detection sensor 120 is protruded from the surface of the inspection table 110, an error occurs in which there is a gap between the inspection table 110 and the inspection object T due to its own volume.

However, there is no particular limitation on the type of the detection sensor 120 that can be used as long as it is possible to detect a narrow gap between the inspection table 110 and the inspection object T by a foreign object. Preferably, an infrared sensor do.

When the infrared sensor is used, a hole having a predetermined depth is formed in the inspection table 110 so that the sensor body is inserted (that is, embedded) and the upper part of the processed hole is not blocked, ).

As the detection sensor 120, other button sensors may be used. In this case, the sensor body is embedded in the inspection table 110, and the pressing part is protruded above the surface of the inspection table 110 to determine the presence or absence of the foreign substance according to the length of the inspection object T pressing the pressing part.

However, considering that the size of the foreign substance is very small, a button-type sensor using a physical contact is more likely to emit a detection signal toward the surface of the object T, like the infrared sensor described above, It is preferable to use the non-contact type detection sensor 120 that receives the signal.

On the other hand, a plurality of such detection sensors 120 are used. The plurality of detection sensors 120 are distributed and installed at various positions on the inspection table 110. In FIGS. 2B and 3B, four detection sensors 120 are arranged in a distributed manner.

It is preferable that the entire object to be inspected T is monitored through the plurality of detection sensors 120 since foreign substances such as abrasives are dispersed irregularly in each part of the object T to be inspected.

Particularly, when the inspection object T is inclined by the foreign substance FM as shown in FIG. 4 and a sloped gap (possible horizontal gap can be generated) occurs between the inspection object 110 and the inspection table 110, 120 are not obstructed, there is no great problem in detection.

5, when the foreign substance FM blocks the detection sensor 120 (i.e., the light emitting portion or the light receiving portion) in the middle, the detection sensor 120 detects the foreign substance FM as an object to be inspected T Error.

Therefore, it is preferable to use a plurality of detection sensors 120 for the purpose of countering the case where the information detected by any one of the detection sensors 120 is erroneous. A more detailed method of determining a foreign object using the plurality of detection sensors 120 will be described below.

The information detected by the plurality of detection sensors 120 is provided to the determination device 130 as a sensing signal. The sensing signal is transmitted in a wireless transmission scheme or in a wired transmission scheme through a signal cable 121 .

The wireless transmission method is advantageous in that it does not use the signal cable 121, but is susceptible to noise. The signal cable 121 method is complicated in the line and inconvenient to move, but it can transmit accurate signals. In Fig. 1, the case of using the signal cable 121 is taken as an example.

Next, the determination device 130 receives the detection value from the detection sensor 120, reads the provided detection value, determines whether there is a gap between the inspection object 110 and the object to be inspected T, It is determined whether a foreign matter remains on the surface of the object T to be inspected.

The discrimination device 130 judges the presence or absence of a foreign substance by using the detection values respectively transmitted from the plurality of detection sensors 120. The discrimination device 130 independently uses the detection values provided by the respective detection sensors 120, And the detection values provided by the sensor 120 are combined and judged.

For example, starting from a simple method using the interval between the detection object 120 detected by each detection sensor 120 and various parameters including the difference in the interval detected by the two or more detection sensors 120, the inclination angle of the interval, To detect foreign matter.

6 shows an embodiment of the determination device 130. As shown in FIG. As shown in the figure, the discriminating apparatus 130 includes a standard value storing unit 131, a comparing unit 132, a sensor label storing unit 133, a three dimensional shape storing unit 134 and a control unit 135. However, the comparison unit 132 and the control unit 135 may be implemented by one MICOM or a CPU.

Here, the standard value storage unit 131 stores a standard value used as a reference for discriminating the presence or absence of a foreign object, such as a gap within an error range, and the comparison unit 132 compares the detection value of the detection sensor 120 with a standard value Determine the presence of foreign matter.

The sensor label storage unit 133 provides the IDs of the plurality of detection sensors 120 and the position information of the inspection table 110 on which the respective detection sensors 120 are installed. The three-dimensional shape storage unit 134 provides three-dimensional shape information of the object to be inspected T.

At this time, the controller 135 receives the positional information of the detection sensor 120, which has detected the foreign substance from the sensor label storage unit 133, and stores the positional information in the three-dimensional shape storage unit 134 Dimensional position of the object to be inspected T by detecting the foreign substance.

The result of the determination made by the comparing unit 132 or the control unit 135 is notified to the inspector through the display or the speaker through the image or voice so that not only whether or not the foreign object remains in the object to be inspected T, So that it can be seen that it is distributed in the part.

On the other hand, a plurality of inspection surfaces of the inspection object T are possible. For example, the gear housing for a vehicle has two inspection surfaces including an inner side surface and an outer side surface, and four semi-cylindrical products including an inner peripheral surface, an outer peripheral surface and both side surfaces.

Therefore, the same number of test strips 110 as the number of test strips is required. In this case, each test strip 110 has the same surface shape as each of the different test strips. The plurality of inspection tables 110 are used to inspect each surface of the inspection object T while rotating the inspection object T a plurality of times.

In order to automatically perform the above-described series of inspections, a transfer robot 140 for picking up the inspected object T inspected by one inspection stand 110 and moving and coupling the inspection object T to another inspection stand 110, .

Vertical movement, backward movement, and rotation movement are required to insert the inspection object T and then insert it into another inspection table 110. [ The rotary movement is used when the inspection object (T) that has been completely inspected is turned over to perform a rear inspection.

Accordingly, the transfer robot 140 has a robot arm capable of picking up or dropping the inspection object T at its operation end. For example, the transfer robot 140 includes an X / Y / Z axis feeder and a rotator .

The specific embodiments of the present invention have been described above. It is to be understood, however, that the scope and spirit of the present invention is not limited to these specific embodiments, and that various modifications and changes may be made without departing from the spirit of the present invention. If you have, you will understand.

Therefore, it should be understood that the above-described embodiments are provided so that those skilled in the art can fully understand the scope of the present invention. Therefore, it should be understood that the embodiments are to be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, The invention is only defined by the scope of the claims.

110, 110_OUT, 110_IN:
120: Detection sensor
130:
T: Inspection object (casting product)
P, P_OUT, P_IN: Surface pattern
FM: Foreign matter

Claims (6)

A test stand 110 having the same surface shape as the surface to be inspected of the object to be inspected T so that the molded object of inspection T is tightly coupled;
A detection sensor 120 embedded in various positions of the inspection table 110 and detecting a gap between the inspection table 110 and the object to be inspected T by foreign substances remaining on the object to be inspected T; And
And a discrimination device (130) for receiving the detection value from the detection sensor (120) and discriminating the presence or absence of foreign matter remaining on the surface of the object to be inspected (T) according to the presence or absence of the gap Product Inspection Device. The method according to claim 1,
The detection sensor 120
Is a non-contact type detection sensor (120) that emits a detection signal toward the surface of the object (T) and collides with the object to be inspected (T) and receives a reflected detection signal reflected therefrom. The method according to claim 1,
The determining device 130
A standard value storage unit 131 for storing a standard value used to identify the presence or absence of the foreign substance; And
And a comparison unit (132) for receiving a detection value from the detection sensor (120) and comparing the detection value with the standard value to determine a presence or absence of a foreign substance. The method of claim 3,
A sensor label storage unit 133 for storing the position of the detection sensor 120 in the inspection table 110;
A three-dimensional shape storage unit 134 for storing a three-dimensional shape of the object to be inspected T; And
The sensor label storage unit 133 receives the position of the detection sensor 120 that has detected the foreign object and detects the position of the object to be inspected T that has detected the foreign matter from the three- And a controller (135) for providing the casting product inspection result. 5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4,
Wherein the inspection object (T) has a plurality of inspection surfaces, the inspection table (110) has the same number as the number of inspection surfaces, and each inspection table (110) has the same surface as the different inspection surfaces Casting product inspection apparatus. 6. The method of claim 5,
Further comprising a transfer robot (140) for picking up the inspected object (T) inspected in one inspection table (110) and moving and joining the inspection object (T) to another inspection table (110).

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